PM Modi promises to provide lifetime visa for PIO, OCI by Jan 2015

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday reaffirmed the decision by his government that all persons of Indian origin (PIO) and overseas citizens of India (OCI) card holders will be given lifetime visas to India, promising to implement it by January 2015

"You must have complaints, you might be feeling that people in the Indian Embassy do not really give you much importance. You people have seen so many bad days in India. When I had gone to the US in September, I had said certain things. The people who had come to hear me speak at Madison Square Garden [in New York] did not put too many hopes in me because many people before me must have also come, said a few words and gone. But whatever I said there, I have started implementing them one after the other," Prime Minister Modi told a packed Allphones Arena here.

"The people who have a PIO card, they will all get a lifetime visa to India. Now it doesn't matter if people in the Embassy do not return your calls," he added.

Prime Minister Modi also talked of a difficult decision by people emigrating from India - whether to take a PIO or an OCI card.

"There is another problem which faced by people - to go in for a PIO card or an OCI card. Both used to get separate treatments but now they will be treated as one," he said.

"There used to be another law, which required PIO and OCI card holders to present themselves at police stations while visiting India. We have done away with that law," he added.

The Prime Minister also promised to implement these new directives by January 2015.

"This year, the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas will be celebrated in Ahmedabad, and this year it is of special importance - in January 1915, Mahatma Gandhi had returned to India from South Africa. Thus we have decided that the decision I have taken regarding the PIO and OCI card-holders will be fulfilled by January 8 and 9 next year, which will be celebrated as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas," he said.

Prime Minister Modi, currently in Australia began bilateral talks with leaders of that nation. After visiting Brisbane and Sydney, he is scheduled to travel to Canberra and Melbourne, before departing for Fiji for the third leg of his three-nation, 10-day trip.