I've had some queries about what visa would be necessary to come to India to get married on.
Come to India on a Tourist visa. Get married, and after the marriage you will be able to get your Tourist visa converted to an Entry (X) visa on dependant status on marital grounds.
To do this you will need to get registered at the FRRO (post coming up on how to accomplish this) and there they will either tell you to go to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in Delhi, or they will accept your application and send it to Delhi. I am not sure if it is necessary for you to take a trip to Delhi at all, but it may be required.
After 1 year of marriage you can then convert your X visa into a PIO card, by the same procedure.
All this can be done here in India.
Oh, this is a fun process. I can't wait to read about your experiences with the FRRO. I had to go to Delhi to have an interview for my X visa, then the Mumbai FRRO claimed they never received my police report. Probably didn't pay the police enough baksheesh to get it there! ;-) It all dragged on for months and months, so I gave up and got the X visa when I went home.
ReplyDelete@sharell,
ReplyDeletelets see how it goes...the guys at the FRRO like me, (i'll post about what happened, soon, i promise!!) so I'm sure it'll be not so hard...and my husband'll bring like 2-5 inches of papers....lol
:)
I'd thought that it would be best to come on a tourist visa and then convert it at some point to a PIO card, so it's good that you advised it as well. I certainly had some exciting adventures with the FRRO in Delhi as I tried to register my student visa. Definitely eye opening. I kind of enjoyed it in some ways because it felt so foreign and ridiculous to me. lol. Even though my fiance had some ridiculous issues with the SSN office here in the states, I still think it doesn't compare with the FRRO office in New Delhi. It's all about perspective I guess. He expected the SSN office to be really streamlined and easy, so then he was super surprised whereas i was prepared for the FRRO office.
ReplyDeleteYes, although in India you can't convert straight from a tourist visa to a PIO card, you need to do it tourist visa -> entry visa -> PIO. However in the US you can simply just apply for a PIO at the Indian Consulate over your jurisdiction after one year of marriage.
ReplyDeleteNow I read this one :-)
ReplyDeleteyes you have to wait one year of marriage to get your PIO, a trip to Delhi is strongly advised but not necessary.
DH had to go to set my multiple entry x visa passport stamping right because they claimed I didn't need it or that papers were not in order enough to do it, so after paying a handsome bribe he got the visa samp, came back in Bangalore got the PIO application, waited a few months to learn the marriage registrar office never forwarder the file because they forgot it, and then 6 months after applying for PIO I finally got it, you need to keep a constant eye on these governement people otherwise they "forget" your file and you can start all over again...fun