New Delhi, May 19 Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday launched the new Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) portal, offering enhanced security and smoother registration to help the five million Indian-origin citizens remain connected with the country.
HM Shah said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is continuously striving to provide world-class immigration facilities to its OCI cardholder citizens.
He emphasised that many Indian-origin citizens reside in various countries worldwide, and we must ensure they face no inconvenience when visiting or staying in India.
He said that a revamped OCI portal with an updated user interface has been launched to simplify the registration process for Overseas Citizens.
The Union Home Secretary, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), and other senior officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) were present on the occasion.
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.
The Overseas Citizen of India (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, said a statement.
However, individuals who are or have been or whose parent or grandparent or great-grandparent citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh, are not eligible.
The existing OCI Services portal was developed in 2013 and is currently operational in over 180 Indian missions 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 feedback received from OCI cardholders, a revamped OCI portal has been developed to address existing limitations and enhance user experience, the statement said.
The new OCI portal introduces several user-friendly features, including user sign-up and segregation of registration menu; auto-fill of user profile details in registration forms; dashboard displaying completed and partially filled applications; and an integrated online payment gateway for those who filed in FRROs.
The other features include 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 an in-built image cropping tool for uploading applicant photos and signatures.
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