Paying INR rates at hotels and tourist attractions

bengaltiger

Registered Users (C)
I read in the Wall Street Journal article dated 15 Dec 06 that OIC holders can pay the cheap INR rates in Rs. at hotels and tourist attractions where NRI's are usually forced to pay the ridiculous USD tourist rates. I suppose technically it should be true because if you can stay in India indefinitely with the OIC you can't be expected to pay in USD, right? Is there any other official document stating this? Has anyone actually paid in INR at a hotel or the Taj Mahal etc. after producing the OIC?

As travel agent I accompany many American tourists to India and I always end up having to pay the ridiculous USD rates for myself. So what if I am an Indian holding a US passport? I think it is just plain wrong to be treated that way in your own country! Hope this OIC visa gives us this freedom as this will be my only reason for applying for it.
 
Read the latest from the Governor Of RBI. He says NRIs and OCI/PIO need not pay US rates. Only Non Citizens need to pay.
 
Invest2bfree, where can we find this latest from the Gov of the RBI? I need to carry a copy with my OIC for sure!
 
Another question. My husband is an American so he is obviously not eligible for an OIC as I am. If I book a hotel in my name are they still going to make us pay the USD rate because of his nationality?
 
Few months back the GOI did announce that they plan to remove the dual charging system for tourists as this was a discrimination.
As usual the wheels of the Govt is slow to move. Atleast they have their hearts in the right place. Wait for 5 more years and we should see this implemented.
 
Hello BengalTiger,

We(family of 5) got our OCI's the early part of November and over the Thanksgiving Holiday, spent about a week in India, visting tourist attractions in Delhi, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. And at every tourist attraction we were asked if we were NRIs, and said no that we were Indians, and paid the Indian rates.

We visited Agra on 11/21. At the entrance to the Taj Mahal, our guide bought Indian tickets for us(Each Indian ticket cost Rs. 20 whereas the Non-Indian ticket costs Rs. 750). At the gate we were again asked if were NRIs, at which point I reiterated no. However, when going through the security checkpoint, the guard saw 5 US passports on me and my son's California driver's license, and so asked another security guard to escort us to buy the Non-Indian tickets. At this point I turned to the page in the US passort where I had the OCI U-Visa, and showed them Videshi "Bharatiya Nagrik" / Overseas "Citizen of India". They had never seen one before, but after looking at at closely, he apologised and let us enter the Taj Mahal with the Indian entrance tickets.

As far as Hotels and Air, since we had a very tight schedule, we had booked everything in advance and paid in US dollars.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Ebay_SFO

bengaltiger said:
I read in the Wall Street Journal article dated 15 Dec 06 that OIC holders can pay the cheap INR rates in Rs. at hotels and tourist attractions where NRI's are usually forced to pay the ridiculous USD tourist rates. I suppose technically it should be true because if you can stay in India indefinitely with the OIC you can't be expected to pay in USD, right? Is there any other official document stating this? Has anyone actually paid in INR at a hotel or the Taj Mahal etc. after producing the OIC?

As travel agent I accompany many American tourists to India and I always end up having to pay the ridiculous USD rates for myself. So what if I am an Indian holding a US passport? I think it is just plain wrong to be treated that way in your own country! Hope this OIC visa gives us this freedom as this will be my only reason for applying for it.
 
Thanks ebay sfo, that was very interesting! Well, according to the previous post the Gov of RBI has put NRI/OIC/POI on the same level and NONE of us should have to pay Rs.750 to see the Taj or pay several times the flight rates on Indian Airlines and some other carriers. Honestly, every time I go home I feel I feel like a walking ATM machine with a neon sign :mad:

So invest2bfree wherever you are, we are all counting on you to send us the link to this article by the Gov of the RBI.
 
Great News

This is such a good news especially for all foreign tourists. Now they don't need to pay in USD to watch the Indian monuments like Taj Mahal, Hawa Mahal. They are allowed to pay in INR.
 
Ran into this thread while doing my research. Here is the link to the official notification. Note: the notification only covers domestic air fares and tourism site even though the intent might have been more general.

Site won't let me post a link - so you will have to covert it to a link:

moia.gov.in _slash_ pdf _slash_ oci_notification.pdf
 
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