India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the merging of Person of Indian Origin (PIO) cards to Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) cards during his trip to the US in 2014.
The process began soon after but considering the huge volume of Non-Residential Indians (NRIs) living abroad, the deadline to convert the PIO to OCI was extended twice.
The deadline to convert your PIO to OCI now is 31st December, 2016.
India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced this in June that Indian government had extended the last date for the application of converting PIO cards to OCI cards.
"I feel that the coversion will not be completed by June 30. So we have decided to extend the last date to December 31 2016," she told reporters at her annual press conference in New Delhi.
The conversion of PIO cards to OCI cards is free-of-charge until December 31, 2016.
However, the applicant will have to pay service charges for the outsourcing agency, ICWF besides the postal charges.
If you haven’t converted your PIO to OCI yet, here’s how you can do it.
The documents required for conversion are:
(i) Copy of valid PIO Card
(ii) Copy of current valid Passport
HOW MUCH TIME WILL IT TAKE TO CONVERT PIO TO OCI?
Upon submission, the time taken to complete the conversion process may vary between four weeks and two months, depending upon where the PIO card was issued.
“In case a person already had a PIO card issued from a particular mission in Australia and is seeking to have it converted to OCI from the same mission, it would take about 3-4 weeks from the date of submission. In case, the PIO was issued from some other mission/posts in Australia, this process would take about six weeks. Further, in case the PIO was issued in another country, the issuance could take up to eight weeks,” an official of the Indian High Commission in Canberra told SBS.
For those under the age of twenty, the OCI card need to be reissued each time a new passport is issued. It needs to be issued only once after completion of 50 years of age. This is necessitated in view of changes in appearance of the applicant.
Those between the age of 21 and 50 do not have to apply for reissuance of OCI each time a new passport is issued.
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