Delhi, June 30:Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah today launched the FCRA 2.0 Portal and e-OCI Card in New Delhi.
On this occasion, Union Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), and several other senior officials were present.
On this occasion, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah said in his address that both the new initiatives launched today will prove to be highly beneficial in increasing the convenience of citizens. He said that both these initiatives started today will enhance facilities for citizens and, in particular, will resolve the difficulties faced by those receiving donations through the FCRA portal. He recalled that in 2014, when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, he had said that our government would work on the principle of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. Shah further said that when the intention is clear, the policy is transparent, and there is a mindset to embrace technology, then all forms of governance become very easy for honest people, a strict surveillance system is put in place for wrongdoers, and the country can be made increasingly secure.
Amit Shah said that prior to 2014, the FCRA system was entangled in files and procedures and was beyond proper oversight, which is critical for both national security and development. He said that after the government was formed under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi in 2014, the system was strengthened. The renewal of the FCRA portal today will greatly enhance ease of operations for organisations. He said that in the past years, there has been a significant increase in the number of applications and the flow of donations. Keeping this in view, reducing paperwork and ensuring real-time effective monitoring of foreign contributions is very important for the country’s security. He said that due to FCRA law, monitoring on foreign contributions coming with wrong intentions will increase. Shah said that with the launch of this new system, the process of physically submitting documents will be eliminated. Facilities such as e-Sign-based authentication, OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and the NGO Darpan bank account integration system will be ensured. He added that since all this data will be hosted on 'MeghRaj' (Government Cloud), the possibility of data theft will be greatly reduced. Along with this, an FCRA mobile application, an AI-powered chatbot, and a dedicated online dashboard for banks will also be launched in the coming months.
Union Home Minister said that the e-OCI Card has also been launched today. He said that the initial problems faced in the OCI system have been resolved in this new system, and it will bring great convenience to more than 50 lakh OCI cardholders. After 20 years, when a new passport is issued, there will be no need to re-issue the OCI booklet, and the cardholder’s registration number will also become unique. Moreover, with the digital OCI card, the problem of losing or damaging documents will be eliminated, and cardholders will be able to carry out real-time verification themselves.
The FCRA 2.0 Portal has been developed to simplify compliance under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act and to strengthen the monitoring and enforcement mechanism. All major processes related to applications, renewals, annual returns, and other services have now been made fully digital (end-to-end). At present, around 14,500 active FCRA organisations are working across the country. Every year, approximately 15,000 to 20,000 applications and about 17,000 annual returns are received.The key provisions of the new FCRA Amendment Rules, 2026 have also been incorporated into it. The portal is integrated with major government databases and banks, including PAN, Aadhaar, OCI, NGO Darpan, and the ICAI’s UDIN system.
The Electronic Overseas Citizen of India (e-OCI) Card is a major citizen-centric initiative aimed at transforming OCI services for the global Indian diaspora through a fully digital system.
Under this system, applicants can complete the entire OCI process online - from submitting the application and uploading supporting documents to downloading the digitally generated card after approval.
Existing cardholders can also obtain their e-OCI Card digitally in most cases without needing a fresh application or physical verification. Under the new arrangement, the requirement to re-issue the OCI booklet upon receiving a new passport after the age of 20 years has been eliminated. However, cardholders will need to update their passport-related details online whenever a new passport is issued.
For applicants, this system provides a convenient and fully digital experience that eliminates the need for physical presence, allows access anytime through mobile devices, speeds up processing through digital issuance, removes the risk of losing or damaging physical documents, and facilitates smoother travel by enabling faster immigration clearance. For the government, the e-OCI system ensures completely online processing, reduces paperwork and administrative costs, strengthens data management and centralised tracking, and integrates with digital immigration systems for real-time verification at airports. This results in better identity verification, enhanced security, and reduced risk of fraud.
The launch of the FCRA 2.0 Portal and the e-OCI Card is yet another significant achievement by the Ministry of Home Affairs in using technology for better governance and public service delivery. It contributes to building a more transparent, secure, and digitally empowered governance system.
