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The Home Ministry’s March 4 order that required professional Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs), to notify the Ministry about their activities in India has created an issue to them.
Notification
- OCIs could intimate the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) through e-mail till the portal is activated.
- On March 4, the Ministry issued a gazette notification that OCI cardholders could claim “only NRI (Non-Resident Indian) quota seats” in educational institutions.
- It specified that OCIs could only pursue the following professions — doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists, advocates, architects and chartered accountants, and the rest would require “special permission”.
- OCIs shall be required to obtain a “special permission or a special permit” from the competent authority or the FRRO or the Indian mission “to undertake research, missionary or Tabligh or mountaineering or journalistic activities or internship in any foreign diplomatic missions.
Issue
- “Even if an OCI student has secured a high rank in an exam like NEET [National Eligibility Entrance Test], several institutions of repute do not have NRI seats.
- The exorbitantly high fees under the NRI quota cannot be afforded by many OCIs as they live and work in India.
- India-domiciled OCI students are deprived of domicile status both in India [country of residence] as well as the country of their citizenship.
Source: The Hindu
