OCI - New York Tracker

No reason given. Nor was I told that I should be applying through outsourced agency. She kept telling me that they do not have much staff. Just to clarify, she meant that they are rejecting only those OCI applications which are pending due to deficiencies or queries have been sent to the applicant regarding the applications.

My initial OCI submission (for myself and my son) was rejected and sent back to me because my wife didn't sign my son's application and it took them five weeks to send everything back. Nothing is easy with these people but when I read about the Houston and SF CGI experiences especially, it seems that NY is the best of the lot. Sad because they definitely are not efficient at all. Good luck!
 
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Pending OCI applications - CGI New York

My initial OCI submission was rejected and sent back to me because my wife didn't sign it and it took them five weeks to send everything back. Nothing is easy with these people but when I read about the Houston and SF CGI experiences especially, it seems that NY is the best of the lot. Sad because they definitely are not efficient at all. Good luck!

JP
It has been more than two months now since I had mailed my wife's and sons application. I had not signed by son's application since it was not mentioned on the form. Also, if I do recieve the application back then I would rather wait until Feb 14 to submit it through the outsourcing company instead resubmitting to the Consulate.
Vivek
 
JP
It has been more than two months now since I had mailed my wife's and sons application. I had not signed by son's application since it was not mentioned on the form. Also, if I do recieve the application back then I would rather wait until Feb 14 to submit it through the outsourcing company instead resubmitting to the Consulate.
Vivek

Vivek, I honestly believe that things are going to improve dramatically once Travisa takes over the application submission process. My limited experience with Travisa was a very positive and pleasant one and I was well informed of where things were. By outsourcing the submission process, at least the CGI can focus on the decision making process for SCs and OCIs.
 
We recieved the OCI applications back from CGI New York today after two and half months. The rejection letter stated that along with the surrender certificate of my wife's Indian passport the Indian passport should also be cancelled. My wife had applied for the surrender certificate back in October and she was sent her Indian passport back along with the surrender certificate. The passport was not cancelled though. They have asked to file a fresh application
 
I too have been waiting for almost 7 weeks now for the acknowledgement. Are they planning to increase the fees after the outsourcing and that's the reason for rejecting all the applications ?

SC received: 11/30/2010
OCI applied: 12/3/2010
email from NYCGI: 12/7/2010
Ack date:
Scan date:
reg granted:
doc printed:
dispatched:
reached NYCGI:
 
OCI application rejection scenario

Vivek, I honestly believe that things are going to improve dramatically once Travisa takes over the application submission process. My limited experience with Travisa was a very positive and pleasant one and I was well informed of where things were. By outsourcing the submission process, at least the CGI can focus on the decision making process for SCs and OCIs.

We recieved my wife and son's OCI rejection yesterday and I am confused with the reason for the rejection. On my son's application it says, Father's Indian passport needs to be cancelled. I recieved my OCI in November 2009 and my Indian passport was cancelled when I had sent my USA and Indian passports along for getting the U sticker affixed. A copy of my cancelled Indian passport was sent along with my sons application.

My wife had submitted her surrender certificate of Indian passport along with her application. When we had applied for her renunciation certificate, the renuniciation certificate came back with the stamp of the consulate and signature of the consular officer but her passport was not cancelled. On her OCI application it says that Renunciation certificate provided + Indian passport not cancelled ......Eligible. The reason given for the rejection is that Spouse's Indian passport not cancelled whereas my passport has a cancelled stamped on it whereas for my wife she has the renunciation certificate and her passport is not cancelled.

There are only two things I can think of now:
1) Resend my cancelled Indian passport to be recancelled along with a renunciation certificate.
2) Resend my wife's old Indian passport along with a copy of the renunciation certificate issued for cancelling her old Indian passport.

I am not sure if doing both of this would suffice. I do not want to send this to Travisa since it requires that the original US passport be submitted along with the application.

Gurus, what would you suggets that I do?

Vivek
 
I too have been waiting for almost 7 weeks now for the acknowledgement. Are they planning to increase the fees after the outsourcing and that's the reason for rejecting all the applications ?

SC received: 11/30/2010
OCI applied: 12/3/2010
email from NYCGI: 12/7/2010
Ack date:
Scan date:
reg granted:
doc printed:
dispatched:
reached NYCGI:

I am in the same boat. It has been over a month now, I sent my OCI application.
 
We recieved my wife and son's OCI rejection yesterday and I am confused with the reason for the rejection. On my son's application it says, Father's Indian passport needs to be cancelled. I recieved my OCI in November 2009 and my Indian passport was cancelled when I had sent my USA and Indian passports along for getting the U sticker affixed. A copy of my cancelled Indian passport was sent along with my sons application.

My wife had submitted her surrender certificate of Indian passport along with her application. When we had applied for her renunciation certificate, the renuniciation certificate came back with the stamp of the consulate and signature of the consular officer but her passport was not cancelled. On her OCI application it says that Renunciation certificate provided + Indian passport not cancelled ......Eligible. The reason given for the rejection is that Spouse's Indian passport not cancelled whereas my passport has a cancelled stamped on it whereas for my wife she has the renunciation certificate and her passport is not cancelled.

There are only two things I can think of now:
1) Resend my cancelled Indian passport to be recancelled along with a renunciation certificate.
2) Resend my wife's old Indian passport along with a copy of the renunciation certificate issued for cancelling her old Indian passport.

I am not sure if doing both of this would suffice. I do not want to send this to Travisa since it requires that the original US passport be submitted along with the application.

Gurus, what would you suggets that I do?

Vivek

What happened to cashiers check? Did they deposited it. If so do you need to send the fee again when you apply back?
I am in the same boat. It's been 2 months since I have mailed my OCI application and it has not acknoledged yet. Got a letter from bank that cashiers check will be void after 90 days.

If they do not deposit the check in 90 days, does the money will be deposited back in my account?
 
What happened to cashiers check? Did they deposited it. If so do you need to send the fee again when you apply back?
I am in the same boat. It's been 2 months since I have mailed my OCI application and it has not acknoledged yet. Got a letter from bank that cashiers check will be void after 90 days.

If they do not deposit the check in 90 days, does the money will be deposited back in my account?

If they reject your OCI package submission for whatever reason, they should be sending everything back including the cashier's check. You would need to take this cashier's check back to your bank to redeposit it into your account. I don't think the money automatically gets credited into your account if the 90 days lapses. My first OCI submission was rejected and they sent back my cashier's check and I redeposited this into my account. Once I was ready to re-submit the OCI package again, I got a new cashier's check with a fresh 90 days.

When did your OCI package reach the CGI-NY? They started acknowledging receipt of OCI packages in late October last year. My second OCI submission reached in early November and a couple of days later, I got an email saying they had received it.
 
If they reject your OCI package submission for whatever reason, they should be sending everything back including the cashier's check. You would need to take this cashier's check back to your bank to redeposit it into your account. I don't think the money automatically gets credited into your account if the 90 days lapses. My first OCI submission was rejected and they sent back my cashier's check and I redeposited this into my account. Once I was ready to re-submit the OCI package again, I got a new cashier's check with a fresh 90 days.

When did your OCI package reach the CGI-NY? They started acknowledging receipt of OCI packages in late October last year. My second OCI submission reached in early November and a couple of days later, I got an email saying they had received it.

I recieved the rejected OCI application package of my wife and son along with the cashiers check which I had originally sent .I deposited it in the bank. When I file for the new OCI, I will get a new cashiers check which would be valid for 90 days.
I also went ahead and resent my old Indian passport for a cancellation/Renunciation Certificate even though my Indian passport says cancelled. I also sent my wife's old Indian passport for a cancelled stamp even though she has a surrender certificate for the Indian passport. Dont want to take any chances this time. It is a waste of time and money though.
JP - When you reapplied the second time, what did you write for Question 15 - Have you/any member of your family applied for OCI Registraion earlier?. On my rejection, they have also mentioned to include $10 as mailing charges since the rejection was sent by Priority Mail.
 
JP - When you reapplied the second time, what did you write for Question 15 - Have you/any member of your family applied for OCI Registraion earlier?. On my rejection, they have also mentioned to include $10 as mailing charges since the rejection was sent by Priority Mail.

I got the same message about mailing charges but ignored it. I know how disorganized they are and they would not know if I owed them anything if I resubmitted a completely fresh application. I was not going to pay for their mailing charges because their reasons for rejecting my first OCI application were ridiculous. I restarted my whole OCI online application from scratch and so I got a new online registration number.

On Question 15, I answered No. They did not even process my original application in the system and so they never made a determination on it and so in my mind, I never applied for an OCI registration the first time. As you know, I had no problems with my second OCI submission and I did not pay any more money than I needed to. In your case Vivek, since you already have an approved OCI, then for your wife and son's OCI application, it makes sense to answer Yes to Question 15 and put in the relevant details as it pertains to your OCI approval. However you do not need to put in any information about the original OCI submission for your wife and son.
 
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Great. Thanks for the useful information. I have sent my wife's old Indian passport back to get it cancelled even though she has a surrender certificate and my passport back to them for a surrender certificate even though it has been cancelled and I am a OCI card holder. Strange that my wife and sons application is rejected because my passport is not cancelled apparently.
Once I get these back, I will resubmit a new OCI application for them.
Vivek
 
Yeah, patience is a real must with this whole OCI thing. It's weird that they did not see that your passport was cancelled. Since you already cancelled yours before this whole SC nonsense started, you really should not need to get the SC. At least that is what the CGI NY website says. Regarding the whole OCI process, it helps if you're not in a big rush to get the OCI status because of an upcoming trip to India. For me, I was not worried because I had no urgency due to any trip but it was just the annoyance of the inefficiencies of the CGI NY that was jarring. Let me know if you need anything else I can try to answer. Good luck with the submissions.
 
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Thanks JP. At this time I am thinking of applying for the OCI only for my wife. I have sent my cancelled Indian passport to get the surrender certificate since my sons application was rejected purely because it said that "Fathers Indian passport needs to be cancelled".
Quick Question - When I apply only for my wife, is she expected to attach a copy of my OCI card since she needs to mention this on Question 15. Does it mean that she also attach copies of my cancelled Indian passport. I am trying to send her application before January 28

Thanks
Vivek
 
Thanks JP. At this time I am thinking of applying for the OCI only for my wife. I have sent my cancelled Indian passport to get the surrender certificate since my sons application was rejected purely because it said that "Fathers Indian passport needs to be cancelled".
Quick Question - When I apply only for my wife, is she expected to attach a copy of my OCI card since she needs to mention this on Question 15. Does it mean that she also attach copies of my cancelled Indian passport. I am trying to send her application before January 28

Thanks
Vivek

I would honestly recommend doing your wife's and son's OCI jointly. Once your wife's SC and cancelled passport come back as well as your own SC, do it together. One thing I did for all of my photocopies is that in addition to self attesting them, I also wrote at the top whose OCI app it was for and what the document was about. So to use your situation the first time you applied, on the copies of your cancelled passport page, I would have written something like "Cancelled passport of father of <your son's name> for proof of father's former Indian citizenship. Cancelled on XX-XX-2010 therefore no surrender certificate required." Wherever there needed to be explanation, I made sure I wrote in on the copy. I think this might be useful for you as well.

Another thing is to have a nice clear cover letter with clear list of submitted docs and any explanations for those as well. I did not use the sample format they had on the website and instead created my own cover letter but did use a table to list documents submitted and I created separate cover letters for myself and my son and attached those to our respective sets of document copies.

If you do submit your wife's OCI app separately, there should be no reason for her application to include copies of your OCI. While she would need to answer Qtn 15 with your details, given that she is an adult applying along for her OCI, the OCI status of others has no bearing on her application. If your minor son was also in the application then it is a different situation because the OCI rules require both parents of minor children to not have Indian citizenship. In this case, they would need proof that you no longer were an Indian citizen (cancelled Indian passport, current US passport, OCI, surrender certificate).
 
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Date Of Acknowledgment
18-JAN-2011
Photo/Signature Scanned
On
18-JAN-2011
Registration Status
Granted
On
25-JAN-2011
Documents Printing Status
NOT PRINTED
Documents Dispatched to Concerned Mission/Office on NOT DISPATCHED
Documents Received at NEW YORK CGI
NOT YET
 
finally acknowledged. seems to be speeding up too.

SC received: 11/30/2010
OCI applied: 12/3/2010
email from NYCGI: 12/7/2010
Ack date: 1/19/2011
Scan date: 1/19/2011
reg granted: 1/26/2011
doc printed: 1/27/2011
dispatched:
reached NYCGI:
 
JP
Thanks for the information. I am preparing to apply for my wife's OCI and will be applying for my son's PIO. I dont think I want to apply my son's OCI until I get my surrender certificate back from CGI NY even though my passport has been cancelled.

I wanted to know if parents who have acquired USA citizenship and have their Indian passport cancelled can apply for PIO for their son. I was told that if the parents are USA citizens then they only can apply for OCI for their children.

Your response will be appreciated.

Thanks
Vivek
 
Has anyone got their documents acknowledged in NYC, if they have sent it after December 15, 2010. I got email from NYC Consulate on December 20th, 2010, saying that they have received it. No updates after that.
 
OCI took 5 months!

I had submitted original OCI application with passport cancellation request on August 23rd, 2010.
They returned the application with a note saying that my name did not tally and sought 'Name change petition from US Authorities' on September 29th.
I returned the application on October 18th with additional docs and copy of old GC and that there had never been a change of name.
Nothing happened till middle of December. Nobody picked up the phones!
I sent an email to Consul General and Consul OCI from one of the links which lists
all the phone numbers and links to e-mails. Regular e-mails don't help at all.
One person called on December 18th. I explained that I had not changed my name at all.
Then nothing till January 14th. After January 14th, the process was quick.
PS. I am unable to put any URLs, due to the 15 posts or more restriction

Photo/Signature Scanned On 14-JAN-2011
Registration Status Granted On 19-JAN-2011
Documents Printing Status PRINTED
Documents Printed On 20-JAN-2011
Documents Dispatched to Concerned Mission/Office on 21-JAN-2011
Documents Received at NEW YORK CGI On 25-JAN-2011
 
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