Amit Shah launches new FCRA portal and e-OCI card

Union Home Minister Amit Shah launches new facilities for overseas citizens. File | Photo credit: PTI

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday (June 30, 2026) launched a new portal that, besides reducing paperwork, will expedite processing of applications for registration under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) and also enable real-time tracking of foreign fund inflows.

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Mr Shah launched the FCRA 2.0 portal and the e-Overseas Citizen of India (e-OCI) initiative. Union Home Minister Govind Mohan, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, Intelligence Bureau (IB) Director Mahesh Dixit and several other senior officials were present at the programme.

There are currently around 14,500 organizations operating across the country with FCRA registrations. FCRA registration is mandatory for NGOs or associations to receive foreign donations.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that around 15,000 to 20,000 applications are made under the Act every year and around 17,000 annual returns are filed. Hosted on the National Government Cloud (MeghRaj), the portal includes features such as process redesign, integrated dashboard, Aadhaar-based authentication, e-Sign facility and OCR-based document analysis.

Unlike the old website, the new FCRA portal has removed the section on year-round fresh registrations under FCRA. In 2022, the MHA dropped sections listing NGOs whose registrations had been cancelled, and a page detailing the annual returns filed by each NGO.

Mr. Shah said that the government’s policy is to ensure transparency, adopt technology so that driving is easy for honest people and a strict tracking system is put in place for wrongdoers and the country can become more and more safe.

Mr. Shah said that before 2014, the FCRA system was mired in files and procedures and was devoid of proper oversight, which is essential for both national security and development. He said there has been a significant increase in the number of requests and the flow of foreign donations in the last few years.

He said the portal will lead to effective tracking of foreign contributions made with improper intentions. He said that with the launch of the new system, the process of physically handing over documents will be eliminated. An FCRA mobile app, an AI-powered chatbot and a dedicated online dashboard for banks will also be launched in the coming months.

He said that the e-OCI card will bring great convenience to more than 50 million OCI cardholders. After 20 years, when a new passport is issued, there will be no need to reissue the OCI booklet and the cardholder’s registration number will also become unique, Mr. Shah said. In addition, with a digital OCI card, the problem of lost or damaged documents will disappear, and cardholders will be able to perform real-time verification themselves.

Published – 30 Jun 2026 19:01 IST