- Parliament orders 45-day probe into delays
A backlog of 678,000 driving licences awaiting printing at the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) is likely to take until around the end of the year to clear, based on figures presented to Parliament, even after new printing machines are installed in mid-October.
The figures were revealed by the DMT during a recent meeting of the Sectoral Oversight Committee (SOC) on Infrastructure and Strategic Development, chaired by MP S.M. Marikkar.
Deliberations at the meeting disclosed a critical bottleneck in the printing of driving licence cards, with the department’s daily printing output currently standing at only 4,600 cards.
When inquired by the SOC members, DMT officials stated that two new printing machines were scheduled to be installed on 15 October, increasing daily printing capacity to 8,200 cards and accelerating the clearance of pending applications.
Based on these figures, if printing continues at the current rate until 15 October and at full capacity thereafter, the existing backlog would take approximately two-and-a-half months more to clear, extending to around the end of December.
This estimate does not account for new applications received in the meantime, or for days on which printing does not take place, either of which would push the timeline further.
The committee instructed that a comprehensive investigation be conducted into the matter and a full report submitted within 45 days.
A committee member told The Sunday Morning that the inquiry would examine the root causes of the delays and the existing operational bottlenecks at the DMT, the tender and procurement procedures for licence cards and number plates, and the technical upgrades and infrastructure improvements required to prevent future delays.
Regarding vehicle number plates, the committee member noted that plates for vehicles registered after 10 March this year had been issued within 14 days.
However, the 45-day investigation will evaluate the broader procurement and long-term delivery processes for both number plates and driving licences to ensure an efficient and uninterrupted public service.
The driving licence printing crisis dates back to January 2021, when the Government transferred the printing process from a private joint venture to the Sri Lanka Army, which set up operations at the DMT’s Werahera branch to cut State costs.
The 2022 economic crisis left the DMT unable to open Letters of Credit to import card blanks and printing materials, forcing it to halt permanent smart cards and issue temporary one-year paper permits with a security QR code instead.
When the DMT took the operations back from the Army in late 2023, nearly all printing machines had broken down due to heavy use and a lack of spare parts, leaving only two operational machines for the whole country, causing the backlog to swell towards 900,000.
Although one million card blanks were later imported from Australia, daily output of just 2,000–4,000 cards from a handful of functioning printers, along with postal delivery backlogs during back-to-back national elections, kept the backlog from clearing.