Sri Lanka’s National Insurance Trust Fund (NITF) will enforce a strict digital update mandate for public sector employee records by 31 July, moving all “Agrahara” insurance benefit disbursements exclusively onto its online portal, NITF Chairperson Visakha Wanasinghe said.
“We intend to use only this data system in the future to disburse the benefits we provide,” Wanasinghe said, urging officers to log in and complete their updates without waiting until the final days before the deadline.
Officials said the shift is aimed at clearing severe administrative bottlenecks. The NITF processes between 18,000 and 19,000 of the 22,000 to 25,000 hard-copy benefit claims it receives each month, with the balance delayed by incomplete paperwork and mismatched certificates. Moving Agrahara health insurance services and payments into a fully digital framework is intended to eliminate that backlog and shorten claims processing times.
The verification drive, carried out under a public administration circular, applies to currently serving state officers, with registry operations underway across 1,900 state institutions. Retired and semi-governmental workers are exempt, as their databases are already synchronised. Operations began on 1 April, and roughly 600,000 of about 900,000 active public servants have registered so far.
NITF Assistant General Manager for Insurance Nimali Pathirana said the centralised database would spare state workers from repeatedly submitting certified copies of documents and would allow the fund to provide services more efficiently. To reach the remaining 300,000 unregistered employees, the NITF has rolled out virtual awareness sessions through 100 zonal education offices and opened hotlines to handle technical glitches and password resets before the end-of-month cut-off.
