A day before the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas begins in Gandhinagar, PIOs have a reason to cheer. With President Pranab Mukherjee giving his assent to the Citizenship Ordinance on Tuesday, PIOs will now be on par with Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) in many ways. The Citizenship Ordinance merges PIO and OCI schemes through amendments in the Citizenship Act. This will enable PIOs also to get life-long visa for travel to India besides exemption from appearing before the local police station on every visit. PIO cardholders till now were eligible for only 15-year visas in comparison to lifelong visas given to OCI card holders.
The Ordinance is a follow-up of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance in New York to the Indian diaspora where he had promised a merger of the two schemes and announced grant of lifetime visa to PIOs. The decision to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 was taken after several PIOs complained about discrimination compared to OCIs. They complained of visits to local police stations and stringent visa norms that debarred them from buying property in India, in comparison to those holding OCI card.
The amendment will also remove a clause where foreigners who marry Indians have to continuously stay in the country for a period of one year before they get an Indian citizenship. The amendment will give foreigners a relief of 30 days in a year to travel outside the country. Meanwhile, senior journalist S Venkat Narayan has filed a PIl in the Supreme Court seeking quashing of amendments made in the Citizenship Act made in 2004 which denies voting rights to the OCIs. Denial of voting right to OCI has been effected by introduction of a new section-7-B(2)(f) and simultaneous deletion of section-12 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 which had been dealing with the issue of dual citizenship prior to 2004.