I went to CGI-NY today and after spending 4 hours there got my Surrender Certificate, Indian Passport with the red “Cancelled as holder acquired US Citizenship” stamp and also my US Passport with the OCI stamp and the OCI Registration document. I also got back the difference between $ 175 and $20 for the Surrender Certificate.
As I had indicated in my earlier post, I had received an email from CGI-NY to come with the payment for $ 20 and get my Surrender Certificate and my original payment of $ 155.
I reached the Consulate at around 9:25 AM and the line had almost reached Madison Avenue. At around 10:50 AM I reached the head of the stairs going down to the Basement. At that moment, the Security Guard came around to say that for those picking up OCI, there was no need to stand in the queue. So a waste of almost 90 minutes of my time.
Anyway, I went to Window 2 and gave the gentleman the OCI Acknowledgement printouts and our US Passports. The only question I was asked whether I had PIO card to surrender. When I replied in the negative, I was asked to come back at 1:00 PM to pick up the OCI Cards.
I then showed the email from Mr. Ravinder Kumar asking me to come to the Consulate to give them MO for $ 20 and take back the $ 155 I had mailed in for Surrender Certificate. I was asked to go to the Interview Room. There a lady was collecting such emails from several folks and also noting down the names of the people who said they had received phone calls. After a wait of around 30 minutes she called out my name, gave me back my MO for $ 720 and took a new MO for $ 80 (for a family of four) and asked me to wait outside Counter No. 8 where they would call out my name. I waited for an hour by counter 8 before they called me and gave me back the Indian passports with a red “Cancelled as holder acquired US Citizenship” stamp on page 1 and a copy of the Surrender Certificate with bottom box signed by a Mr. S S Dhariwal, Assistant Consular Officer.
I then went back to Counter No. 3 and after a wait of about 15 minutes received back our US Passports with the OCI Visa and our OCI Registration documents.