About 70,000 Indians have surrendered their passports to regional passport offices (RPOs) all over the nation in the past ten years, with eight states accounting for more than 90% of the returned travel documents. Passports surrendered at Indian Embassies and High Commissions overseas are not taken into consideration in the information provided under the Right to Information (RTI) Act; rather, only RPOs are covered.
70,000 Indians Have Surrendered Their Passports
According to information provided by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in response to a Right to Information (RTI) request made by The Indian Express, as many as 40.45% of the 69,303 passports that were surrendered during this time were turned in at the RPO in Goa.
However, the 69,303 passports turned in through RPOs since 2011 represent a small portion of the Indian citizenship that has been relinquished during this time. The most passports were turned in in Goa, followed by Punjab (including Chandigarh UT), where 13.79% of passports were turned in.
Minister of State in the MEA V Muraleedharan showed that nearly 16.21 lakh Indians resigned their citizenship between 2011 and October 31 of last year.
Gujarat Is On Third Rank
Gujarat came in third place out of the eight states with the most passports turned in, followed by Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi.
People of Indian Origin are not permitted to hold dual citizenship under The Indian Citizenship Act of 1955. A person must immediately return their Indian passport if they have previously held one and have afterwards gotten one from another nation.
According to MEA data submitted in the Lok Sabha, since 2011, 11,422 Indians have given up their nationality per month on average. In contrast, The Indian Express claimed that around this time, 482 Indian passports were turned in on a monthly basis at RPOs throughout India.
Only 239 passports were surrendered at RPOs in India in 2011, according to a year-by-year review, but during the following two years, the numbers skyrocketed to 11,492 and 23,511, respectively, before levelling off over the following nine years in the 2,000–4,000 range. (As per The Indian Express and Financial Express)
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First Published: June 27, 2023 2:53 PM