Laravel: Connecting to sqlite database throws "PDOException: Could not find driver"

I am deploying a Laravel project to a shared hosting and added a php.ini with:

extension=pdo.so
extension=pdo_sqlite.so
extension=sqlite.so

In phpinfo, I could also see that the sqlite extensions are loaded. Testing to connect to the database with the following code snippets also worked:

<?php
try { 
    $dbh = new PDO("sqlite:app/database/production.sqlite");
    echo "Connected to database!";
}
catch(PDOException $e)
{
    echo $e->getMessage();
}

However, when trying to connect to the databse using Laravel, the application throws me the PDOException error.

Appreciate any help on this. Thanks in advance!