Update, September 25: The suspension has now begun as announced. NewsFirst confirmed on Friday morning that electronic vehicle revenue licence services are suspended across the eight provinces. Services are due to resume on Tuesday, 29 September.
Update, September 24: The Daily Mirror has now named all eight provinces affected, resolving the discrepancy flagged below. North Central Province is included; Western Province is not. The full list and the confirmed restart date are set out at the end of this article.
Services on the electronic vehicle revenue licence system, eRL 2.0, will be suspended for four days from 25 to 28 September while a system upgrade is carried out.
The suspension has been arranged with the consent and approval of the chief secretaries of the provincial councils, Hiru News reported.
Authorities said the downtime is needed for a critical system cutover intended to improve the functionality, stability and reliability of the island-wide digital revenue licence infrastructure.
What this means for motorists
Vehicle revenue licences are renewed annually and are required to keep a vehicle legally on the road. Owners whose licences fall due over the four-day window, or shortly after it, should renew before 25 September or expect to wait until services resume on 29 September.
Motor vehicle revenue licences in Sri Lanka are issued by the provincial councils rather than by central government, which is why a change to the shared platform requires provincial sign-off.
The eight provinces, confirmed
The suspension affects the Central, North Central, North Western, Southern, Eastern, Northern, Sabaragamuwa and Uva provinces, the Daily Mirror reported on Thursday morning.
That list resolves a discrepancy in the original announcement. Hiru’s report described the arrangement as covering eight provincial councils but named only seven — Central, Uva, Southern, Sabaragamuwa, Northern, North Western and Eastern — leaving the Western and North Central provinces unaccounted for. The Daily Mirror’s version supplies North Central as the eighth.
Western Province is the one province not affected. It is the largest single market for vehicle revenue licences, so the exclusion covers a substantial share of the country’s vehicle owners, whose service should be unaffected across the four days.
The Daily Mirror also confirms that the eRL 2.0 system is scheduled to resume operations on Tuesday, 29 September, with normal service expected thereafter, and describes the upgrade as intended to improve the efficiency and quality of the service.
Still not reported
Neither outlet says what the upgrade changes for users, whether over-the-counter renewal at provincial offices remains available while the online system is down, or whether any penalty relief applies to licences expiring inside the four-day window.
