The Indian Consulate in Melbourne is urging all Indian migrants to convert their Person of Indian Origin card into an OCI (overseas citizen of India) card.
It says the International Civil Aviation Organisation will only recognise machine-readable travel documents from 2018. Since the existing PIO cards are hand-written, those will become invalid after the ICAO’s decision comes into effect in 2018.
The Indian Consulate, therefore, has called all those Indian migrants to convert their PIO cards into OCI cards by 31st December 2017.
In July this year, the government of India extended the deadline to convert the PIO cards into OCI to 31 December 2017. During this period, the conversion doesn’t require any extra scrutiny or additional documents other than copies of the foreign passport and the existing PIO card.
Source: Consulate General of India
The Indian High Commission says the conversion will be done free of charge. However, the applicants are required to pay the ICWF fee and the service charges for the outsourcing agency as well as the postal/courier charges.
Key Points For OCI-Registration (In Lieu of PIO-Card)
1. Read Instruction carefully before starting the registration process.
2. Start registration as New OCI-Registration and fill all details required.
3. Place of submission for OCI-Applications (In Lieu of PIO-Card) should be the same as the Place of Issuance of PIO-Card.
4. Provide Valid PIO-Card details at the place specified. PIO-Card should be valid as on 9th Jan 2015.
5. Complete Part-B of the registration process.
6. Documents supporting your application are to be uploaded at the end of Part-B.
7. After completing the application, a hard copy is to be submitted to the selected mission's office.
8. No registration fee will be charged for such applications. However, SMS/Fax/Agent charges, as applicable, will be levied on the applicant.
For more information see: http://passport.gov.in/oci/capchaActionPIO
