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The Minister of State (Independent charge) for Overseas Indian Affairs, Shri Jagdish Tytler told the Rajya Sabha today that the Citizenship Act, 1955 was amended in 2003 to provide for registration of Persons of Indian Origin from 16 specified countries who fulfill specified criteria as Overseas Citizens of India. These countries are: Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Republic of Cyprus, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States of America.
The Minister further told that the Ministry of Home Affairs has received nearly 2000 applications from the concerned Missions/Posts. However, the application form and the procedure for the Overseas Indian Citizenship Certificate are being revised/simplified by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Hence it has been decided to put the scheme on hold to enable all the applicants to avail of the revised application form and the simplified procedure.
This information was given by Shri Tytler in reply to a question by Sh. Santosh Bagrodia, Sh. R.K. Anand & Sh. Harish Rawat.
AK/SK/JA
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