UNION HOME Minister Amit Shah on Monday launched the revamped Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) portal and said its updated user interface will simplify the registration process for overseas citizens.
Shah said under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is continuously striving to provide world-class immigration facilities to its OCI cardholders. He stressed that many Indian-origin citizens reside in various countries worldwide, “and we must ensure they face no inconvenience when visiting or staying in India”.
“The new portal will provide enhanced functionality, advanced security and a user-friendly experience for the existing over five million OCI cardholders and new users. The new OCI portal is available at the existing URL: https://ociservices.gov.in,” a MHA spokesperson said.
According to the MHA, the OCI scheme was introduced through an amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955, in 2005. “The scheme provides for the registration of Persons of Indian Origin as Overseas Citizens of India, provided they were citizens of India on or after January 26, 1950, or were eligible to become citizens on that date. However, individuals who are or had been or whose parents or grandparents or great grandparents are citizens of Pakistan or Bangladesh are not eligible,” the spokesperson said.
“The existing OCI services portal was developed in 2013 and is currently operational in over 180 Indian missions abroad as well as 12 Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs), processing approximately 2,000 applications per day. Given the significant technological advancements over the past decade and the feedback received from OCI cardholders, a revamped portal has been developed to address the existing limitations and enhance user experience,” the spokesperson said.
Explaining some of the key user-friendly features of the new OCI portal, the spokesperson said it has a user sign-up and segregation of registration menu, auto-fill of user profile details in registration forms, dashboard displaying completed and partially filled applications, integrated online payment gateway for those who filed in FRROs.
“It also has seamless navigation across application steps, categorisation of requisite documents to upload based on application type, editing option to the applicant at any stage before submission, integrated FAQ in the portal, reminder to the applicant to verify information before final submission, display of eligibility criteria and requisite documents based on selected application type, in-built image cropping tool for uploading applicant photos and signatures,” the spokesperson said.
