Seven more days to apply for 'Overseas Citizen of India' cards

Muscat: Indian expats holding Person of Indian Origin (PIO) cards have seven more days to apply for Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards without inviting an additional charge.
“The deadline for the free conversion of Person of Indian Origin card to Overseas Citizen of India card is set to expire on December 31, 2017,” according to the Indian Embassy in Muscat.
“After December, to convert a PIO card to an OCI card, the applicant will have to pay $275(OMR105.7). PIO card holders will not be able to use their cards after the deadline (December 31), if they do not convert them to OCI cards,” the embassy has clarified.
An official from the Indian Embassy noted: “A Person of Indian Origin means a foreign citizen (except a national of Pakistan, Afghanistan Bangladesh, China, Iran, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Nepal) who has at any time held an Indian passport; or who or either of their parents/grandparents/great grandparents was born in and a permanent resident of India, as defined in the Government of India Act, 1935, and other territories that became part of India, thereafter, provided neither was at any time a citizen of any of the aforesaid countries (as referred above); or, who is a spouse of a citizen of India or a PIO.”
“The conversion of the PIO card into an OCI card has nothing to do with NRIs (non-resident Indians), the embassy official added. This comes after the Government of India announced that the PIO cards could be converted to OCI cards without any additional charge until December 31, 2017.
“As per the International Civil Aviation Organisation rules/guidelines, passengers can now travel only with machine readable travel documents. Therefore, the PIO cards, most of which are hand-written, are being currently converted to OCI cards without any extra fee until December 31, 2017,” explained the embassy official.
Converting PIO cards into OCI cards has many benefits. “It may be noted that the government has extended the validity of OCI cards for life time, as against PIO cards, which were valid only for 15 years. The OCI card holders can also buy residential/commercial property in India, except for agriculture/farming land. They can also travel to India without any curbs, and the requirement of registration with the Foreigners Regional Registration Office if their stay extends to more than six months has also been done away with,” said the official .