I does seem unnecessary. I can think of two possible reasons:

1. The booklet might be used for exercising some privileges that OCI are allowed but other visa holders are not allowed, employment is one example, if OCI are allowed to work.
2. The Government might have some future use in mind.

These are pure conjectures on my part.

I looked at the Indian Embassy page about OCI. It says:
THERE IS NO EMERGENCY SERVICE FOR OCI. DO NOT PLAN TRAVEL BEFORE YOU RECEIVE OCI IN YOUR HAND.

Are you not allowed to India during the period between submission of your application and receipt of your OCI visa? It seems to me that you should be able to travel.

I am an equal opportunity humiliatee

Governments don't realise, maybe they do, that they are making things worse by preventing people from visiting their country. Most people, even with Pakistani connections who want to come to India, want to come for tourism, or visit friends and relatives. Both countries should allow visitors freely so that the two peoples can see the reality first hand instead of being fed by politicians and the media. When applying for a visa to India or Pakistan, political connections do help.
I was invited to a friend's wedding in Lahore, but I decided not to go because of what would await me upon my return to the U.S.

i don't think india is strict when considering visa aplications from muslims....my friends & family are coming to india all the time & they have never had a problem getting a visa....

the pakistan travel may be an issue but its got nothing to do with the muslim name....

I see hundreds of passports daily in my job so i got a possible answer for the pre-partition born in PAK land question situation.

Indian passports for those who are born in Pakistan land before partition have place of birth as e.g. Lahore, Undivided India. Now this is an official Indian document so i guess it is pretty safe to put down Undivided India as place of birth regarding the question of those born in pak before partition.

Lots of complaints here...................Has anyone of you guys complaining about the requirements for an Indian visa ever thought about the requirements for a US or EU visa when you are applying on an Indian passport from India?

good point....while i have never had a problem personally, i know too many people who have....

That is the best solution. There might not be enough space for what I suggested, which was Lahore, India (now Pakistan).

I do too. I have heard that things are easier now than they used to be. I have heard that student visa is rarely refused now. I suppose it must be very difficult for people from Pakistan to get a U.S. visa.

I too have heard of people from Pakistan visiting India. Nowadays Pakistani people are travelling to India for medical treatment too. I am sure there are some who are refused.

It would be impossible for Indian Embassy to refuse visa to people with Muslim names as we all know that more than one out of eight Indians is a Muslim.

believe it or not, i actually agree with what you say. We have no right to complain about procedures which if implemented by a "western" country, no one would bat an eyelid, India is sovereign and it can demand whatever paperwork it wants.

The process may be a pain in the backside but it is nothing compared to what the average Indian goes through to get a visa for the west.

I had a nightmare trying to get my OCI (so glad ive got it now) and i cursed them till i was blue in the face but now i understand that i had no right to do so because now my wife (who is an Indian) has to give her entire life history and surrender her passport to the british authorities for 3 whole months (meaning she cannot fulfil her job) to get the visa to come to the UK.

Why was getting your OCI was a nightmare?

because i am British and with its colonial history, the way i qualified for OCI was complicated. I had to go back 2 generations and show that my grandad was British Indian and then establish a direct link.

It could have been so simple through my mum, who was Indian citizen, but in 1982 when she naturalized the British policy was to impound the Indian passport and send it back to the Indians so she has no evidence that she was an Indian. On top of that, her birth certificate does not mention her name (those days kids were not named straight away) and the BMC do not put one on retrospectively.

It took me 4 trips to the High Commission for them to accept my application.

whereas if your american, its easy, you emigrated on an Indian passport, you naturalized and you became American. Its fairly simple whereas many British Indians have never held an Indian passport.

Wow, wonder what the reasoning was for that. Does that still happen?

Actually it is not impossible, and in the last few years there has been some anecdotal evidence of US citizens of Indian origin being denied visas. I know of one case involving a university student of Muslim Indian origin who experienced a visa rejection. His parents are Indian, he was born in the US, has never traveled to Pakistan, but could not travel to India to get married. No reason was given for the visa rejection. I have heard of other cases but really don't know much about them.

Similarly, many US citizens of Pakistani origin who have traveled to India in the past without any problems have reported that their visa applications have been rejected. Whether one wants to term it discrimination secondary to being a Pakistani or secondary to being a Muslim is, I think academic since one is largely a subset of the other.

Generally the people impacted by bureaucratic idiocy, whether it is based on religious profiling or is equally applied to all applicants are usually ordinary people just trying to conduct business, visit relatives or see some place that they identify strongly with.