Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Digital Economy and the Information and Communication Technology Agency have confirmed that the government expects to name the Master System Integrator for the SL-UDI national digital identity program by the end of March 2026. The decision will determine which of five pre-qualified Indian firms will lead implementation of the country’s first unified digital identity system.
The five firms cleared to compete in the final techno-commercial bidding stage are Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Protean e-Gov Technologies, RailTel, and Bharat Electronics. All five were confirmed as qualifying bidders in a pre-qualification notice published by the National Institute for Smart Government under tender reference NISG/SLUDI-2025.
Ministry Secretary Waruna Sri Dhanapala and Deputy Minister Eranga Weeraratne are among the officials who have publicly outlined the timeline, which is tied to the governance requirements of the India-backed grant framework financing the program. The program’s funding is cited at approximately LKR 10.4 billion – around $34 million – provided through Indian grant support.
The implementation timeline attached to the MSI selection is specific. Officials have indicated an April 2026 target for launching the implementation phase, with first digital IDs expected in the third quarter of 2026. The existing national identity card ecosystem, including the Thales-era card infrastructure, will remain valid for a transition period of three to five years while the SL-UDI e-Locker digital ID rolls out.
The final MSI selection follows Sri Lanka’s shortlisting of five Indian firms for the national digital ID contract in November 2025, when the field of competitors was narrowed following the pre-qualification stage. The procurement rests on the infrastructure established through Sri Lanka’s LGC 2.5 government cloud procurement, which secured the backbone platform the SL-UDI system will operate on.
The program’s technical architecture is grounded in open-source foundations. Sri Lanka’s engagement with Indian firms for a MOSIP-based digital ID established the open-source identity platform as the program’s baseline, with the winning MSI expected to build on that stack for the national rollout.
Sri Lanka’s program represents one of the more closely watched national digital identity procurements in South Asia, given the scale of the undertaking and its position as a test case for India’s grant-supported digital public infrastructure export model.
Sources: NISG SL-UDI Program Page, NISG Pre-Qualification Results, Sri Lanka Ministry of Digital Economy
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By Ali Nassar-Smith
