OCI or India Visa for travel to India in 8 weeks from now

[micky1579]

HI,

I got british passport this week and planning to surrender my Indian passport next week. I have my travel planned for India from 20th Dec. I was originally planning to apply for OCI but it looks like it may not be possible to get OCI by 20th December (8 weeks from now with next week being consumed in the Surrender process). Please can someone suggest if I should apply for OCI or I should apply for India Visa to ensure that I can travel to India on 20th December. If I should apply for Visa then which visa should I apply - tourist or Long Entry visa so that I definitely get Visa before 20th December. Other option could be to use my Indian passport as it is but since I am outside my 3 month of grace period so don't want to pay penalty of 290 GBP.

Kindly advise.

[samkma]

Surrendering Indian passport takes just 7 days if applied to VFS, London (in person applications is 5 days) See http://www.immigrationboards.com/other- ... 3-640.html

Looking at the timeline for OCI it takes no more than 35 - 40 days if you apply to HCI, London. see http://www.immigrationboards.com/other- ... -3100.html

or
go for PIO, its now lifelong and takes only 3 weeks max - See here http://www.immigrationboards.com/other- ... 61938.html

So you should be fine if you start off ASAP & use HCI, London/VFS, london you should be fine.

[micky1579]

Thanks for your help. I was earlier planning to go for OCI but looking at the latest development related to PIO where it is lifelong, this looks more attractive for me than OCI. My wife's and son's (born in UK) naturalisation is in process and so they will also be planning to apply for PIO sometimes later next year. Please can you confirm if I am thinking right that PIO has no disadvantage against OCI.

[micky1579]

Also, looking at the PIO form, it seems that we have to provide details of two referees. Please can someone confirm if they can be relatives or not as i couldn't find any information related to same anywhere.

Thanks.

[micky1579]

Please can someone confirm the below.

- Can the two referees of PIO be relatives or not?
- Any disadvantage of PIO as compared to OCI in view of the latest rule of PIO being lifelong.

Regards,
Puneet