Certain categories of OCI cardholders are allowed to India | Fusion - WeRIndia

Indian government relaxed restrictions and allowed certain categories of Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) cardholders to travel to India.

The ministry of home affairs (MHA) announced on this. As per the announcement, certain categories of OCI cardholders are allowed to visit the motherland.

These include minor children born to Indian nationals abroad and university students studying abroad whose parents are Indian citizens living in India. But, they should hold OCI cards.

Those who want to travel for family emergencies like a death are also allowed. Besides, couples, where one is an Indian national and another one is an OCI cardholder and they have a permanent residence in India are also allowed to travel to India.

Now all these categories of OCI cardholders have been permitted to travel to the country.

Earlier, MHA imposed visa and travel restrictions on foreign nationals to travel to India on 07.05.2020. But, these restrictions would not apply to any vehicle that brings back these categories of OCI cardholders.

However, remaining terms and conditions laid down by the Home Ministry shall continue to remain in effect.

The government wanted to bring back stranded Indians from other countries and launched ‘Vande Bharat Mission’, a special operation programme.

So far, several stranded Indians from other countries have been brought in two phases. Soon, the third phase of this operation begins.

The relaxations to OCI cardholders will benefit many people. They have been eagerly waiting to travel to the country.

However, the government gave priority to those who stranded abroad before accepting the requests from the OCI cardholders. These include pregnant women, people with medical emergencies and people who lost their jobs overseas.

As per the data, around 200,000 Indian nationals have registered with the foreign affairs ministry to return to India.

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