The Cabinet has approved a €4.93 million contract for five million pre-printed polycarbonate cards to be used in issuing National Identity Cards, awarding the tender to German supplier Muhlbauer ID Services GmbH.
The procurement was cleared for the Department for Registration of Persons at a Cabinet meeting on 7 April 2025, Daily Mirror reported. Bids were then called under International Competitive Bidding, drawing eight submissions.
Muhlbauer was named the substantially responsive bidder on the recommendation of the High-Level Procurement Committee, Hiru News reported. The award was proposed to Cabinet by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his capacity as Minister of Digital Economy.
At €4.93 million for five million blanks, the contract works out at just under one euro per card before printing and personalisation costs.
What changes
Polycarbonate is the material used for machine-readable and biometric identity documents, and is substantially more durable and harder to forge than the laminated card Sri Lanka currently issues. Neither report says when cards will begin to be issued on the new stock, whether existing holders must replace their cards, or what the cards will cost applicants.
Nor do the reports explain the gap of roughly seventeen months between the April 2025 decision to begin procurement and Tuesday’s award, or name the seven unsuccessful bidders.
