Today is the 90th day since I submitted my application to receive a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card. And no, this is not cause for celebration. Ninety days is supposedly the maximum limit to wait for a certain police check, but I haven’t heard any word. Am I surprised? No. Am I frustrated? Yes.
Not only have I not had any word regarding the status of the application, but I have tried on numerous occasions to contact someone, anyone, with no success. I actually thought I might be a silly, over-reacting American when I decided a month ago, “Hey, let’s try to see if we can find out about the application.” Even though I knew there was still time left, I had a faint fear that the deadline would come and go without a word. And it has.
We attempted calling numbers from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) website, no answer. Going to the local office for foreigners, “We can’t help until 90 days are up.”
I’m slightly afraid as I write this post that I should be censoring myself. But the Indian government does takes pride in offering freedom of speech. After all, independence happened from the British because people were able to openly criticize. So as I blog, I will enjoy this right as any Indian or PIO. I know that my application is still accurate, my spouse is Indian and as such I deserve PIO status.
I’ve been told to be patient, that these things take time. I was patient, for the 90 days. Now, not so much. Sorry, I’ve reached my limit!
It seems it might take less time for those applying from abroad. Even my husband is now stating (after the fact) that he had a feeling it would be tougher to do “inside”. But, being residents here, we were following the rules that we were supposed to apply here.
See this forum thread about someone who’s PIO application took 17 months to process from Delhi! One bonus of this experience: connecting with other expats in India…
Note: I have revised this post after realizing my misinterpretation of the procedures. They’re not quite so straightforward.
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