A recent rule from Government of India regarding overseas Indians may affect a lot of us. If you are an Indian Citizen with a valid Indian Passport, you have no issue and you can ignore this. However, if you are a foreign passport holder (e.g., USA, or any country other than India) and a former Indian Citizen (i.e., you had a passport from Government of India before you obtained your foreign citizenship) , you should read this email. Even you have a existing OCI visa or valid tourist visa for India, you may be affected. According to new rules, persons of Indian origin who acquired foreign citizenship, must surrender their Indian passports immediately after the acquisition of foreign citizenship and also obtain a Surrender Certificate – and pay a price. There’s a $175 fee for the surrender of the passport for each member of the family and that’s on top of the regular visa fees. Now strict new rules have been posted on the websites of Indian consulates worldwide, a surrender certificate must be acquired. In case you are not aware, over the last few days, people with valid visas are even being stopped and sometimes were not able to enter India. This rule was issued on May 25 and already created big protests in many places. Now, here it even went to another extreme - this rule was put in effect for everyone no matter when they got their foreign citizenship. Indians who left their homeland 40 years back are now feverishly searching for their old passports so that they can hand them over to the Consulate and get the all-important Surrender Certificate. Otherwise, they can’t go home. Talk about procrastination on the part of the government! The penalties for retaining and reusing the Indian passport after obtaining a foreign passport are retroactive and can go from a simple (?) $175 for a surrender certificate to up to $2,000 with penalties if applicable. The Government of India has prescribed imposition of penalty on a graded scale, depending on number of trips made on Indian passport after acquiring foreign nationality, for the violation of Passport Rules and retention of Indian Passport for more than 3 years after acquiring of foreign nationality. If this rule affects you, you can sign a petition to oppose Retroactive Enforcement of New Rules for Surrender of Indian Passport. Visit PetitionOnline at: http://www.petitiononline.com/ip100521/petition.html This petition to PIOs was created by GOPIO International, written by Ashook Ramsaran (ramsa...@aol. com <mailto:[email protected]> ), has already been signed by nearly 30,000 signers as of today. Please sign this petition if you haven't signed already. Late breaking News! As of today, Government of India has updated their ruling as follows: http://indiacgny.org/ go to this site and click on the recent post that is blinking 'NEW' Fees for Obtaining Surrender / Renunciation Certificate Waived In view of a large number of representations received from Persons of Indian Origin, it has been decided that the fees for obtaining Renunciation/ Surrender Certificate from applicants who have acquired US citizenships before June 1, 2010 will be waived. However, a miscellaneous service fee of US$ 20/- will be charged for surrender of passport for cancellation. No penalties will be charged. Already decided cases will, however, not be reopened. Indian passport holders who acquire US/foreign citizenship on or after June 1, 2010 will, however, be required to pay the fees of US$ 175/- for obtaining Renunciation/ Surrender certificate. Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão. _________________________________________________________________ The world on four wheels in MSN Autos http://autos.in.msn.com/
[Goanet] P.I.O.s and O.C.I. s beware new regulations.
Dr . Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:21:34 -0700
