By Uditha Devapriya
How one team came together to resolve Sri Lanka’s intractable fuel shortages
On June 27, Sri Lankans woke up to some rather dismal news: the country had run out of fuel, and the government would limit stocks to essential services and industries for two weeks. The situation was so bad that the government had excluded inter-provincial public transport from the list of essentials. Its message to the public was stark and dreary: stay at home, don’t go out. A week earlier it had shut down schools. Now, one after another, the country’s most vital sectors, factories, and establishments were coming to a screeching halt. Once teeming with life, its cities soon turned into ghost-towns.
Uncertain about the future and full of anger, people took to the streets. Less than two weeks later, they succeeded in ousting the President, whom they blamed for the shortages and the price hikes. A thoroughly shaken government took note of these developments: it realized that unless the shortages were addressed, the crowds would not dissipate. While queues lined up for cooking gas and food, it was the fuel shortage that had impacted most people. Yet with a dollar shortage and an economy in recession, the government could not import the necessary stocks: while it had spent USD 300 million on fuel imports in December 2019, it was spending more than half a billion a month now.
When fuel shortages began to peak in March and April, the government mooted a quota system. Yet lacking the proper infrastructure, this never saw the light of day. A fool-proof system was needed, one which could guarantee all vehicle owners a weekly quota while bringing down queues to manageable levels. The task of coming up with such a system fell on Sri Lanka’s premier state-owned ICT institution, the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA). The country’s Energy Minister, Kanchana Wijesekera, insisted on a quick timeframe: the Ministry would be receiving petrol and diesel stocks after July 15, so the system had to be out by then. There was little time for a pilot phase.
“The issue was that we couldn’t get back to the way things were,” Jayantha de Silva, Chairman of ICTA at the time, remembered. “The queues had lengthened so badly that the State had lost credibility.” The most immediate priority was to restore that credibility. With this in mind, the ICTA team toured across the country, visiting one filling station after another. “We realized that trishaws and motorbikes posed the biggest problem. There was massive hoarding going on. This deprived larger industrial vehicles, like lorries, of much needed fuel. It was killing the economy.” The solution presented itself immediately: “We realized that, in this context, only a technology-based solution would work.”
Initially they hit upon an SMS system. Yet as de Silva realized, “basing it on SMS would open it to the risk of misuse. People could use multiple numbers. To be sure, the system would have worked the same way it is now. But Kanchana Wijesekera was skeptical.” They hence scrapped the SMS idea and turned to software applications. “With apps, two obstacles had to be cleared: ease of use and cost. On both fronts, Minister Wijesekara was very clear. Our application had to be adaptable, and it had to be low-cost.”
Setting out a plan
“Normally, we would have to go through a lengthy process, from calling for tenders to ensuring procurements. But we didn’t have time. The Ministry was clear on that point. Then we remembered that Dialog had developed a similar system, which even ICTA was using. It was essentially a fuel pass. You had to purchase a card and it could be used only at a select number of stations. We felt this was the ideal basis on which we could develop a suitable app for our needs.” The ICTA team went into discussions with Dialog, “which was willing to negotiate with us. In fact, it gave us the system backend free of charge.”
With one problem cleared, another soon materialized. “The entire ICTA team dedicated to this project, from the relevant departments, numbered about 18 people. It wasn’t enough.” It thus decided to partner up with the private sector: something it ordinarily wouldn’t do, but which it had to here. Then another challenge cropped up: “The Ministry wanted us to come up with the system, the Quick Response (QR) code, in two weeks. But we asked for a pilot phase. Initially they were reluctant.” Procuring the data was not hard. “We wanted to minimize the potential for fraud, so we used dual verification: to generate the QR code, you needed your vehicle registration number and the chassis number.”
Crisantha Nanayakkara, Chief Technology Officer at ICTA, remembered the first meetings and discussions. “Both Dialog and Millennium IT, which conceived the fuel pass system for Dialog, were willing to lend support. Our role was to provide the Application Programming Interfaces or APIs for our system. We got the necessary APIs from the Department of Motor Traffic. We were at an advantage there because, as the leading public ICT institution in the country, we had automatic access to government documents.”
From the beginning ICTA was mindful of the data protection and security implications of the project. In an official press release, the agency noted that any data processed by the Fuel Pass website, www.fuelpass.gov.lk, would facilitate only the Fuel Pass system. “Over time rumors began to spread that the data would not be secure and encrypted. We clarified then and there that this was not true. We were transparent all the way through and were in full compliance with all relevant legislation, including the Personal Data Protection Act No 9 of 2022. We used the data only for verification purposes.”
Designing the product
The next step involved the design of the Minimum Viable Product, the MVP. “We opted for an agile approach,” Dasun Hegoda, Director and Software Architect at ICTA, and one of the leading faces of the National Fuel Pass initiative, pointed out. “We needed to keep track of customer feedback. The feedback loop was important, not just from the consumer, but also from fuel stations, including CPC and LIOC sheds, and government departments.” One of the first obstacles they faced with the MVP, Hegoda remembered, was with the chassis number. “Some customers found it hard to register it. So, in response, we incorporated a temporary registration number from the Department of Motor Traffic.” Later, they added several other features to the platform, “including one to delete your profile.”
Manpower also became a priority. “We had fewer than 1,000 people, fewer than 20 of whom were in the digital field,” Jayantha de Silva recounted. At a time when credibility had sunk low, “communicating the system to the people was very important.” While the army had been used to maintain order at fuel stations, “this was not a viable strategy if we were to get the ball rolling from day one.” The only solution was to bring in young people, and to train them in the system. “We trained around 10,100 people. Since we had no time, it was a 24-hour, around the clock operation. People put in extra hours and they worked overnight.” The National Youth Council “dedicated” about 5,100 boys and girls, while other institutions and organizations, like the GA, the District Secretariat, and the Youth Corps, also stepped in. Initially skeptical, ICTA officials increasingly found cause for optimism.
“From the beginning we said we wanted a pilot phase,” Sameera Jayawardena, Associate Chief Digital Economy Officer, put in charge of adoption strategies, recalled. “We had a big crisis in our hands, and we could not afford to fail. Our initiative covered a whole range of stakeholders, from citizens to government departments. The shed owners themselves, all 1,377 of them, hailed from different backgrounds and locations. Our operating credo was ‘think big, start small, and replicate fast.’ To that end we began the project with five sheds: two at Bambalapitiya, one in Pagoda, one near Cinnamon Lakeside, and one at Flower Road. We had 60 people or so working at these locations. They all gave their best.”
There had been hiccups. “At one point the app stopped working. This was around the 20th and 21st. We rectified the issue immediately. We could afford such errors. It was the bigger mistakes that we had to avoid. If we didn’t, people would start panicking. On the second day we did an analysis of the preceding day. We focused our attention on the Bambalapitiya and the Flower Road sheds. Unlike earlier, when we gave allowances for customers without a QR code, we made the code mandatory. Then we did another review, before going island-wide. On the third day we began testing in 25 sheds across 25 districts.”
The adoption strategies for the island-wide rollout had to be precise. “We had exactly nine members of the team for each province, to handle the shed owners. We had an around-the-clock customer service number, 1919, for people to forward their queries. On Facebook we maintained a page where we rolled out updates for the system. We coordinated with social media groups that had been set up for fuel updates. They cooperated quite willingly with us. Through the National Youth Council, we mobilized mass support. Ultimately, we worked on results and outcomes. And we got what we wanted: less than a week later, the queues were starting to reduce, much quicker than we had expected.”
Looking ahead
If necessity is the mother of invention, freedom is the recognition of necessity. Though the fuel crisis is far from over, the QR code system has, to a considerable extent, freed most people from the queues which had been lining up endlessly for months. Though the queues have not completely disappeared – that will depend not just on the code, but more crucially on a continuous supply of fuel – they are much shorter than they were. Moreover, the country’s monthly fuel bill has, according to the most recent statistics, more than halved.
It’s the perfect solution, resolving a never-ending problem while reminding people that the issue has not gone away: something Kanchana Wijesekera, the Energy Minister, has himself noted. “We will be coming up with new categories for generators, grass-cutters, along with existing vehicles, like trishaws and cabs,” Dasun Hegoda interjected.
Happily for ICTA, and also Sri Lanka, Jayantha de Silva noted at the end of the interview that “several countries have contacted us regarding how they can use QR codes to manage fuel. Some of these are developed economies, including from the West.” Recalling the arduous process they underwent, de Silva was full of gratitude to Minister Wijesekera, who, he says, “encouraged us all the way through.” De Silva pointed out that the agency today is engaged in “reformulating its strategies and getting into partnerships with the private sector.” This doubtless promises to be a win-win situation for both parties, particularly for projects that are yet to come, “including our biggest, the Digital ID project.”
In a country where tech innovation has been limited to rhetoric, the Fuel Pass has become more than your typical patchwork solution. It’s a near-perfect case study of how a State institution can work with private organizations, and how such cooperation can benefit the people. The dollar crisis is, to be sure, not going away any time soon. Nor, for that matter, are the fuel shortages. Yet until such time as things can return to the way they used to be, the Fuel Pass will guarantee weekly quotas and ensure that queues, a way of life not long ago, will be minimized, if not eliminated: a breath of fresh air for Sri Lankans who woke up to news of an indefinite fuel shortage two months ago.
Note: This interview was conducted soon after the launch of the project.
Uditha Devapriya is the Chief Analyst – International Relations at Factum and can be reached at uditha@factum.lk.
Factum is an Asia-focused think tank on International Relations, Tech Cooperation and Strategic Communications based in Sri Lanka accessible via www.factum.lk
