Originally Posted by
oliver2002
Once upon a time the OCI used to be a 'U' type visa in the form of a sticker in your passport which you had to carry with you even if the passport had expired. The current OCI card came about after the merger of the PIO and OCI programs and is the visa sticker in a handy booklet format that doesn't need the old passport (once the new passport is registered in the system). Since they switched to a central database (which is queried by the airlines at checkin) to record the passport number the empty pages to endorse/update things are no longer required/used.
But even in the early days of the OCI program, I don't think we heard of anyone actually getting any endorsements on those pages - if you updated your passport the recommendation was to carry both passport books and/or get a new OCI booklet. The booklet was also never, AFAIK, stamped for entry/exit either. It is a bit of a mystery what purpose the booklet was intended to serve originally. With the design looking very much like a passport, I imagine maybe the early thinking in the bureaucracy was indeed to make it kind of like a passport (the very terminology "overseas citizen of India" is confusing in this regard anyway) and so more like a standalone travel document. But certainly that never worked out.
My most recent booklet actually has a rubber stamp in one of the pages that's basically a reminder that all foreigners, including OCIs, need permits for certain activities, including missionary work and such. Not sure if that's standard in the booklets now or random or specific to me (nothing in my travel history has anything to do with these restricted activities).