OCI Miscellaneous Services Launched today

New Delhi, Jan 1 (UNI) The Union Home Ministry today launched an on-line supplemental service for the benefit of all Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) cardholders who may require re-issuance of the OCI registration in the event of issuance of new passport, loss of registration certificate and need for change in address and other particulars.

The OCI Miscellaneous Services will be available on the Home Ministry's official website www.mha.nic.in/oci/oci-main.htm.

"It is expected that the launch of the Miscellaneous Services would address the problems faced by registered OCIs in obtaining new set of OCI documents," a statement issued by the ministry said.

The fee for re-issuance of OCI documents is 25 US dollars or equivalent in local currency. The fee for issuance of duplicate OCI documents is 100 US dollars.

The salient featurs of the services include : Application can be made online by registered OCI by selecting the requisite service, hard copy of application along with requisite enclosures could be submitted to the concerned Indian Mission/Post/Office which could issue file number to the applicant by e-mail after the receipt of application, the status of the requisite service could be checked by the applicant on online status inquiry, new OCI documents could be issued after cancellation of the old documents after grant of the requisite service.

The OCI scheme was operationalised on December 2, 2005 and formally launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas in 2006 at Hyderabad on January 7, 2006.

The scheme has generated tremendous response from the Overseas Indians. As many as 199,500 OCI certificates have been issued as on January 1, 2008.

UNI SH VD KN1805