Programme to issue birth, marriage, death certificates to SL expatriates through foreign missions

Colombo, November 13 (Daily Mirror)- The government has announced a new initiative to issue copies of birth, marriage and death certificates to Sri Lankans living abroad through Sri Lankan embassies, aimed at providing greater convenience to the expatriate community, the President’s Media Division (PMD) said.

 The programme will be launched as a pilot project across seven selected foreign missions, including the embassies in Kuwait, Japan and Qatar and the consulates in Melbourne (Australia), Toronto (Canada), Milan (Italy) and Dubai (UAE).

In Sri Lanka, efforts are underway to enhance the e-BMD (electronic Birth, Marriage, and Death) database system, which is jointly managed by the Registrar General's Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"This will allow birth, marriage and death certificates to be issued through foreign embassies, following a model already in place for obtaining certificates at Divisional Secretariat offices across Sri Lanka," a statement from the PMD said.

"In the initial phase, only the approximately 45 million birth, marriage and death certificates that have already been scanned and stored in the e-BMD system will be issued.

“These will include records for births, marriages and deaths that have been registered since January 1, 1960. While the majority of these records will be available, there may be occasional delays in updating certificates that have been revised after their initial entry into the database," the statement added.