New Digital OCI Card System Aims To Eliminate Paperwork

NEW DELHI-Union Home Minister Amit Shah on June 30 launched the e-OCI Card and the FCRA 2.0 Portal in New Delhi, saying the initiatives will make services more convenient for citizens while strengthening monitoring of foreign contributions and enhancing national security.

The e-OCI Card introduces a fully digital system for Overseas Citizen of India cardholders and is expected to benefit more than 5 million OCI cardholders by enabling a fully digital process.

OCI booklets will no longer need to be reissued when a passport is renewed after the age of 20, although passport details must be updated online whenever a new passport is issued.

The digital OCI card will feature a unique registration number, enable real-time verification and eliminate the risk of lost or damaged documents.

The e-OCI Card enables applicants to complete the entire OCI process online, from submitting applications and uploading supporting documents to downloading the digital card after approval. Most existing OCI cardholders can also obtain the e-OCI Card digitally without requiring a fresh application or physical verification.

The upgraded FCRA portal digitizes applications, renewals and annual returns, eliminates the physical submission of documents, supports e-Sign authentication and Optical Character Recognition, integrates with PAN, Aadhaar, OCI, NGO Darpan and the ICAI’s UDIN system, and is hosted on the Government Cloud ‘MeghRaj’ to improve data security, compliance monitoring and oversight of foreign contributions. (IANS)