As I'm flying to India on the last week of June, I was about to bite the bullet and apply for the PIO conversion. Fortunately, they made it optional at the end of May. That list of documents they are asking for is....humongous. Ideally, they should have asked only for a recent photo, recent utility bill to prove your address , nominal fee to make a digital card only. They say its 'FREE', but the amount of time to make all the triplicate copies with notaries and blah..blah will cost at least 2 days of work time.