- As per the Gazette of India (Part-I, Section-I) published on 09.01.2015, all the existing Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) card holder registered as such under new PIO Card scheme 2002, shall be deemed to be Overseas Citizens of India Cardholder.
- All PIO card holders with valid PIO cards as on 09.01.2015 are advised to apply for conversion of their PIO card to OCI card.
- Bureau of Immigration would accept PIO card as valid document till March 31, 2019 along with valid foreign passport. Machine-readable electronic document is mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) guidelines. If in the meantime, any deadline is notified by the ICAO, thereby making hand written PIO cards invalid, then PIO card holders may have to obtain appropriate visa from Indian Missions, if they have not converted their PIO card to OCI card. However, the Indian Immigration check posts will continue to consider all PIO cards valid for exit/entry into India till 31st March, 2019.
- Gazette Notification of Merger of PIO & OCI Cards :https://mha.gov.in/PDF_Other/Merge_PIO_OCI.pdf
- Extension of deadline for registration as OCI cardholder by erstwhile PIO cardholders:https://mha.gov.in/PDF_Other/Extensiondeadline_27122016.PDF
Tags