GS Paper - II

In the wake of several Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders complaining about being reclassified as “foreigners”, the Ministry of External Affairssaid that there were no changes made to the OCI rules.

What is an OCI card?

• Introduced in August 2005, the OCI scheme provides for registration of all Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) who were citizens of India on 26 January 1950, or thereafter, or were eligible to become citizens of India on the said date.
• An OCI card holder — essentially a foreign passport holder — gets a multiple entry, multi-purpose life-long visa for visiting India, and is exempt from registration with local police authority for any length of stay in the country.
• As per government records, there were more than 45 lakh registered OCI card holders in 2023, from 129 countries. The US topped the list with over 16.8 lakh OCI card holders, followed by the UK (9.34 lakh), Australia (4.94 lakh) and Canada (4.18 lakh).
• Initially, an OCI card holder was entitled to general parity with Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) with respect to availing facilities in economic, financial, and educational fields, except for in matters relating to the acquisition of agricultural or plantation properties. NRIs are Indian citizens who are permanent residents of a foreign state.

What are the latest rules regarding OCIs?

• On 4 March 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a gazette notification amending the rules regarding OCI card holders. They remain in place today.
• These rules required OCI card holders to seek permission or a permit to visit protected areas in India. The same restrictions apply to foreign nationals visiting Jammu & Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh.
• A series of new restrictions were also introduced, including a requirement for OCIs to secure a special permit to undertake “any research”, to undertake any “missionary” or “Tablighi” or “journalistic activities” or to visit any area in India notified as “protected”, “restricted” or “prohibited”.
• Lastly, the notification put OCIs at par with “foreign nationals” in respect of “all other economic, financial and educational fields” for the purposes of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 2003 although past circulars by the Reserve Bank of India under FEMA continued to hold ground.
• This reversed the position wherein OCIs were equated to NRIs for the purposes of their economic, financial and educational rights.

Who cannot be an OCI? And what are OCIs not allowed to do?

• An applicant is not eligible to get an OCI card if his/her parents or grandparents have ever been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh.
• However, the spouse of foreign origin of a citizen of India or spouse of foreign origin of an OCI, whose marriage has been registered and subsisted for not less than two years, can apply for an OCI card.
• Foreign military personnel either in service or retired are also not entitled for grant of OCI.
• The OCI card holder is not entitled to vote; to be a member of a Legislative Assembly or of a Legislative Council or of Parliament; to hold Indian constitutional posts such as that of the President, Vice President, Judge of the Supreme Court or High Court. He or she cannot normally hold employment in the government.