Immigration check at BIA goes hi-tech

By Sarashi Samarasinghe
The Department of Immigration and Emigration is to issue computerized embarkation and disembarkation cards from February 1st.

“There are approximately six million passengers travelling abroad annually. Until now, the Department issued embarkation cards manually,” said P.B. Abeykoon, Controller, Department of Immigration and Emigration.

He noted that they had decided to introduce this computerized system as it was difficult to keep details of thousands of travellers manually. He noted that the new system will be very beneficial even when conducting criminal cases.

“The new system is a much more convenient way of storing data, because we could scan the relevant documents and the embarkation cards that we issue for future reference,” Abeykoon noted.