Q.902 OCI holder denied hotel

reservation for not having OCI

card

To whomsoever it may concern, I made hotel bookings in a swanky hotel in Jaipur. Am a US citizen and have my OCI but was not on my person save my US passport and my 2 childrens Passport. (Natural born US citizens) They asked us to provide them with our OCI cards. Since I did not have them in me they said its against their protocol And refused right to stay. Needed light on this situation. Do you know if this has happened before? Can they turn us away? Regards A S Kalpa Answer: I can well understand the frustration such a situation can cause, the importance of the OCI booklet came into effect I believe in April 2013 when the government authorities issued instructions that OCI holders must carry both their foreign passport and OCI booklet as proof of their OCI status. Both these documents should always be in the possession of the OCI card holder while traveling to India. As per rules set by the government of India to combat terrorism, there is a requirement that all hotels or guest houses or for that matter even an individual house, university or hospital in India that provides accommodation to foreigners must submit details of the foreigner’s staying with them. There is a specific form for this purpose called ‘Form C’ that must be filled and submitted to the registration authorities within 24 hours of the arrival of a foreigner on their premises. Form C is where details such as foreigner’s date of arrival in India, Passport details, visa etc are shown. All hotels will take a photocopy of Passport and Visa to keep as a record and this has become standard procedure. Hotels face a heavy fine for non- compliance. Most foreigners will have their visa stamped on their passport, however in case of OCI holders the OCI booklet is where the actual visa is shown and hence this must also be produced. The reason this issue does not get mentioned more often is because I suspect that some OCI holders simply show themselves as Indians when checking into hotels and get away with this perhaps by showing other forms of ID or paying a cash deposit when they check in. Hotels normally are more alert when foreigners check in and are more inclined to insure that any person who registers as a foreigner must produce their passport and visa. They obtain copies of the documents and use the guests information to file Form C. Thanks for taking the time to bring this issue to the attention of other NRIs.