OCI Card Holders are Confused, Complains of Harassments from Immigration and Airport Authorities

The OCI cardholders have been facing a lot of harassment from the immigration department and airport authorizes due to the lack of knowledge that any OCI cardholders below the age of 20 and above the age of 50 have to apply for the renewable OCI card in case they have renewed their passports or applied for a new passport during this period. In a view to providing relief, the Indian Government has announced relaxation up to 30 June 2020 wherein anyone with the renewed passport below the age of 20 and above the age of 50 can travel to India without a new OCI card. 

What is the OCI Card and why you need a Renewable Card?

The OCI cardholders also known as Overseas Citizen of India is meant for the Indians who have migrated to other countries and taken their citizenship but still want to come to India. The OCI card is given them the freedom to come down to India any number of times with lifelong passport and longer duration of stay in the country.

According to the guidelines set down for the OCI cardholders, anyone below the age of 20 applies or renews the passport he or she needs to apply for the renewable OCI card and the OCI card has to be re-issued once the new passport is acquired by the cardholder after completion of 50 years of age. But the re-issuance is not required for the cardholder between the age of 21 and 50.

What is the concussion all about? 

Although the above guidelines have been set by the Indian government for the OCI cardholders, unfortunately, the cardholders are not aware of this provision. The cardholders are under the impression that the OCI card is meant for a lifetime. This resulted in creating a massive inconvenience to many OCI cardholders, in particular, those with children and senior citizens.

Every time the OCI cardholder travels to India without the knowledge of the same he or she faces lots of problems and that amounts into the harassment to avoid this situation the Indian government have given the relaxation to all the OCI cardholders up to the 30th of June 2020 wherein they can travel to India with their existing OCI card provided they have both old and new passport showing the OCI card number in that.

The Media Buzz

According to the report published by the Press Trust of India, The holders of Overseas Citizens of India or OCI cards, who are either below 20 years or above 50 years of age and have renewed their passports, can continue their travel to India till June 30, subject to them carrying both the old and new passports along with OCI card, according to an official notification issued on Tuesday.

The move, welcomed by the Indian-Americans, comes after a large number of OCI cardholders in the last few months complained that they were being subject to harassment by both the immigration authorities and airline officials in implementing a little-known provision of the OCI, which were not being enforced so far.

In the last several months, Indian diplomatic missions and eminent Indian-Americans were flooded with such complaints. In many cases, OCI cardholders had to cancel their trip to India or had to abruptly return mid-way from places like Dubai, and Singapore.

Most of them have complained that they were not aware of the situation wherein they had to apply for the renewable OCI card every time if the cardholder is below the age of 20 and above 50.

“No one knows about this provision. We were being told that OCI card is for life. This created massive inconvenience to many OCI cardholders, in particular, those with children and senior citizens,” said Indian-American Prem Bhandari, who recently took up the matter with Indian Ambassador Harsh Vardhan Shringla and the Civil Aviation Ministry.

According to the reports, the Home Ministry for the Foreign Division has issued a memorandum to all the relevant government agencies and airlines that OCI card holders not between the age of 20 and 50 years of the age and who have either renewed or applied for a new passport can travel to India as long as they have their old cancelled passport with them.

The above development has provided a major relief to all the Indian Americans and all the OCI cardholders of Indian Origin. Meanwhile, the OCI cardholders who have not applied for the renewable cards will have to apply for the same within the relaxation period to travel back to Indian in the future, suggested the report.

Source: PTI