Foreigner registration in India for infant child with PIO card

Update: As several people have commented, children below 16 years of age are not required to go through foreigner registration. But this post still serves as a good reference about the ordeal of missing to register when you are supposed to.

About six months ago, my husband and I came to India with our son tugged along. We are Indian citizens while our son is a US citizen but has a valid Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card. We assumed that having a valid PIO card and clearing immigration at the airport was adequate for living with him in India — particularly because we were still uncertain about the duration of our stay. But we were wrong!

In our first six months in India, we took care of important tasks and made important decisions. Then one day while reviewing an article, my husband realized that we had missed one important task — we were supposed to get our son registered at a local police station. Strangely the rule states that we had to register within first 15 days of the visit if the stay is for longer than 6 months. So it does not take into account the situation where the duration is unknown at the time of arrival. Nevertheless, we inadvertently violated the requirements for foreigner registration because we were at 6 months and 12 days. Also, the process for registering our son was very unclear.

It was only after several frantic phone calls, multiple trips to 3 police stations and several government offices over one week in the Indian summer heat, we finally got the registration permit. But, due to my unawareness, I followed a very circuitous route to getting this permit. I figured, I will blog about all the right steps — so that others in a similar situation may benefit from it.

1. Obtain the foreigner registration form
2. Downloaded the FRO registration form or get it from the local Foreigner Registration office (FRO). In Pune, the FRO is located at the Police Commissioner’s office near Sadhu Vaswani Chowk.
3. Prepare documents
4. I would advise getting 3 photo copies of each of the following documents
5. First and last page of foreigner’s passport as well as page that shows arrival date stamp
6. Foreigner’s PIO card
7. First and last page of both parents’ passport
8. Proof of address — in our case it was a registered Leave & License agreement
9. Two passport photos of the foreigner
10. Keep originals of all documents during each of the below steps, just in case the staff wants to review it.
11. Form C
12. Form C is page number 4 of the document you downloaded in the first step
13. In Pune, the Form C submission counter is located next to the Foreigner Registration office at the Police Commissioner’s office
14. I got the completed Form C signed by our landlord and went to submit it along with one set of photocopied documents.
15. But apparently our landlord is required to submit this form at the FRO within 24 hours after we moved in. So the staff at the Form C counter refused to accept the form and asked me to get further instructions from the Senior Officer at FRO about submitting the Form C.
16. The front-desk staff at the FRO refused to let me meet the senior officer because I was the tenant and apparently the landlord was supposed to meet the senior officer. After insisting and massaging the staff’s ego they let me meet the senior officer. The senior officer scolded me for being ignorant about this requirement, and instructed his staff to process the Form C after issuing me a written warning.
17. The staff gave me a typed warning letter and asked me to get a photocopy of the letter (nearest photocopy place was about 100 meters outside the FRO compound). After I got a photocopy of the warning letter, they reviewed my documents, stamped the Form C and gave the original Form C back to me.
18. Later in my conversation with the staff, I learnt that they would have accepted a letter of authority from the landlord along with an apology letter for the delay in submitting Form C. But initially when I visited the FRO to enquire about the process, the staff even refused to speak with me since I was a tenant — or I could have gotten these documents and saved some trouble.
19. Address verification from local police station
20. Get a photocopy of the stamped Form C
21. Visit the police station assigned to your residential area, along with one set of all photocopied documents, 2 passport photos and an empty envelope.
22. At the police station, they kept all documents, returned the originals and asked me to come back the next day to pick-up the envelope. When I went back to the police station the next day, they prepared the documents while I waited. They signed and stamped a few documents, put it in an envelope, sealed it and handed the envelope back to me. Do NOT break the seal of this envelope.
23. Foreigner registration at the FRO
24. Next, I took another set of photocopies and the sealed envelope that was provided by the police station to the the front-desk at the FRO.
25. The receptionist reviewed the documents, signed a few documents and directed me to the PIO desk.
26. The staff at PIO desk checked all documents and directed me to another desk for paying a fine of US$30 since we had passed the required date for completing the registration.
27. At this other desk, they accepted cash payment in Indian Rupees or US Dollars. After paying this fine, I went back to the PIO desk with the fine payment receipt. The staff at the PIO desk reviewed the receipt and directed me to the Online Form Filling desk
28. Staff at this desk completed a computer-based application and directed me to the document scanning desk
29. At the scanning desk, they scanned relevant documents, took a photo of my son and returned all original documents back to me. Then I was directed back to the PIO desk
30. At the PIO desk, I received a date for collecting the residential permit.
31. At each desk, I waited in line for about 15 minutes. In reality, I went back to the PIO desk at the end of each step because I was unaware of the next step. The staff at the PIO desk did not provide clear instructions on all the steps that I had to follow — and instead gave me clues to the next step only after I completed it and went back to check-in with them. I did not mention it in the above write-up because going back to the PIO desk at the end of each step is completely unnecessary
32. Pick the residential permit
33. I went back to Permit Pickup desk at the FRO, 2 days after the assigned date along with the application receipt and original passport. They handed me the permit after I acknowledged receipt by signing in their register
34. The residential permit is valid for a period of 4 years from the date my son entered India

A few other related points: OCI card holders do not need to go through this police registration process. Apparently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Bhartiya Pravasi Divas that the government will be merging PIO and OCI cards. But rather than waiting for this merger to happen, we are just going to apply for an OCI card for our son. Will post about the OCI application process on this blog soon.

Update 1: Vinayak Naik’s comment below, prodded me to review the eligibility requirements for OCI in detail. As per instructions on this webpage from Indian Embassy our son is not eligible to apply for OCI because “Minors whose both parents are Indian are not eligible for OCI”

Update 2: As pointed out by Manoj Chouhan in the comments to this post, children below 16 years of age are not required to go through foreigner registration. Reference: http://www.immigrationindia.nic.in/sites/default/files/ForeigD-FRRO_version223.6.11.pdf

Another blog post that may be of interest to readers: Exact process from birth of child in the US to obtaining all travel documents — Process for obtaining birth certificate, US passport, SSN and PIO Card for child born to Indian parents in America

Please post questions, feedback in the comments section of this post.

PS: I had originally written this blog post on a legacy blogging platform. Many readers of the post left comments with their experience. I have copied those comments here as they provide some good insights.