5.1. Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder

Both the schemes were running in parallel even though the OCI card scheme had become more popular. This was causing unnecessary confusion in the minds of applicants. Keeping in view some problems being faced by applicants and to provide enhanced facilities to them, the Government of India decided to formulate one single scheme after merging the PIO and schemes. Consequently, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2015, modified the provisions pertaining to the OCI in the Principal Act. It has introduced a new scheme called “Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder” by merging the PIO card scheme and the OCI card scheme.