PIO Card for wife?

[desinole]

Hi,
I'm an Indian citizen on GC. Can I apply for PIO card for my wife? She is US citizen with no Indian ancestory. I'm getting conflicting answers from different sources.

[quark4]

The Home Ministry, which is entrusted with PIO affairs, says that only the following people are PIOs:

"A person who or whose any of ancestors was an Indian national and who is presently holding another country’s citizenship/nationality i.e. he/she is holding foreign passport." (Copied from http://www.mha.nic.in/oci/chart.pdf)

This means your wife is not a PIO and can not be issued a PIO card.

[Indian75]

According to the webpage http://www.mha.nic.in/pioscheme.htm, she is definitely eligible for the PIO Card, as long as it has been one calendar year since the date of marriage. The text specifically states:


WHO IS ELIGIBLE?
Any person:
* who at any time held an Indian Passport; or
* he/she or either of his/her parents or grand parents or great grand parents was born in an permanently resident in India as defined in the Government of India Act, 1935 and other territories that became part of India thereafter provided neither was at any time a citizen of any country as may be specified by Central Government from time to time; or
*who is a spouse of a citizen of India or a Person of Indian Origin as mentioned above.

The scheme is broad-based, covers up to four generations and also the foreign spouse of a citizen of India or a PIO

Hope this helps.

[Indian75]

I'm in a similar situation as you. My wife is a US citizen and not independently a PIO. However, she received the PIO card in the mail, based upon her marriage to me, an Indian citizen. We applied to the CGI-Chicago, and it took almost 8 weeks for the card to arrive in the mail.

Hope this helps.