What is the purpose of the OCI booklet?
Aug 1, 2019, 10:24 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2016
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What is the purpose of the OCI booklet?
I understand it serves as visa for life, but no one has ever stamped or marked any of the pages whenever I have used it. They always look at it, then stamp my foreign passport. What is the purpose of the pages in the booklet?
Aug 2, 2019, 3:09 am
#3
Moderator: Lufthansa Miles & More, India based airlines, India, External Miles & Points Resources
Join Date: Dec 2002
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It has 6 empty pages. The original purpose of those is to enter endorsements (entries by the consular officer or FRRO) or document changes (new address, change in passport number etc). Imigration is not supposed to stamp it.
Aug 5, 2019, 11:36 am
#4
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It was done to make it look more passport like -- to convey a false sense of citizenship -- and to use it as a way for some notices/endorsements to be placed on it for when dealing with some Indian authorities. I don't know if the OCI booklets have been marked up for those who needed to get identification numbers and additional authorizations of sort after arrival in India as an OCI, but maybe some have.
Aug 7, 2019, 9:20 pm
#5
Join Date: Aug 2017
Programs: Delta
Posts: 270
Yes, the OCI booklet is designed to look like a passport (in line with the deliberately confusing naming of the visa as an "overseas citizen" status) but the pages seem never to be used for anything. I've never heard of anyone getting endorsements on the inner pages, but then again I only know a handful of OCI-holders. I suppose it's possible. Really, they could probably have designed it to be a card like the US "green card" or a driver's license.
Aug 8, 2019, 1:50 am
#6
Moderator: Lufthansa Miles & More, India based airlines, India, External Miles & Points Resources
Join Date: Dec 2002
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But you can stamp and sign such cards 
And you know Indians loove to stamp and sign stuff.
The only similar overseas citizen scheme I know of is the mavi/pembe card issued by Turkey to migrants who pick up citizenship in other countries. Sadly they named it blue card recently, so its impossible to find images of it in the interweb easily. I vaguely recall from my last trip to Turkey that my collegues looked like a service passport in a similar format to the OCI card. The images I see on the internet are more of a card but all in Turkish and very rudimentary.
And you know Indians loove to stamp and sign stuff. The only similar overseas citizen scheme I know of is the mavi/pembe card issued by Turkey to migrants who pick up citizenship in other countries. Sadly they named it blue card recently, so its impossible to find images of it in the interweb easily. I vaguely recall from my last trip to Turkey that my collegues looked like a service passport in a similar format to the OCI card. The images I see on the internet are more of a card but all in Turkish and very rudimentary.
Aug 8, 2019, 9:17 pm
#7
Join Date: Aug 2017
Programs: Delta
Posts: 270
Yeah, all the more strange that they don't stamp the OCI booklet at all. It might actually have been interesting in the same way that collecting stamps in the passport is interesting, although considering how often I travel to India my booklet would likely have been filled up quickly with stamps - and that might result in another headache in that one might have to renew the OCI if the pages are full! :-)