As of 19 September, a total of 6,272,385 consumers across the country have registered to receive fuel passes, with 34,444,886 transactions made islandwide during the seven-week period since its inception.In a move towards increased digital maturity by the Ministry of Power and Energy – under the leadership of Minister Kanchana Wijesekera – on 1 August 2022, Sri Lanka officially commenced the total implementation of the QR code system for fuel rationing for all motorists. Of the nine million smartphone users in Sri Lanka – of which 7.9 million are on social media – six million consumers to date have signed up for the QR code fuel pass system. The success of the system has not only been reflected in the easing of fuel queues and an increase in accountability at stations but has also been an answer to the growing calls for increased national tech literacy in a fast-evolving global digital landscape. While QR codes have been put to use previously (in national efforts for contact tracing during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and LankaQR, for instance), this has been its most successful implementation since.Market digital transformation in Sri Lanka has been recorded at 36% of the country’s total population in comparison to India and Bangladesh, which have been recorded at around 29% and 28%, respectively. In fact, according to a 2018 McKinsey report titled “Unlocking Sri Lanka’s Digital Capacity,” in an analysis of about 50 Sri Lankan companies across multiple industries, it was found that the country’s overall digital quotient score of 35 places it slightly higher than the global median of 33. However, Sri Lanka still lags behind when placed individually against more developed countries, though holding the potential to come up to par with its global counterparts.
