Nightmare at the FRRO
on Jana Gana Mana (India), 01/Mar/2011 06:16, 34 days ago
I know it’s been over a week since our last post but with a mix a work deadlines and a hectic social week, we haven’t had a chance to sit quietly for a few minutes. We’ve also been steeling ourselves for our first proper experience of Indian bureaucracy since arriving in the Country.The experiences of those people trying to register at the Foreigners Regional Registration Office are well documented elsewhere. There are hundreds of tales of woe in dealing with visa officers and although I won’t replay them here, it would be sufficient to say that our expectations of our visit were low. Very low.In a nutshell, in order to extend our 6 month employment visas, we have to first register with the FRRO. Once registered, we can extend our visas until the end of our placement. (There is the catch 22 issue in that you can't register until the visa has been extended but i'll worry about that another day).So, duly armed with all the forms and paperwork in quadruplicate, we arrived an hour before opening time and took our place in the queue. And once the office opened, we were both pleasantly surprised by the speed and efficiency of the process. Okay, the officers were rather brusque but given the tedious nature of the work I will let that pass. When our time came we approached the desk with trepidation and that’s when it all went wrong.The officer dutifully announced that we were to be fined for non-registration of our entry in India within the required 14 days. Aware of that one from my earlier research, I highlighted the stamp on the 6 month visa that said“registration in 14 days not required if staying beyond 180 days”. 1 – 0. “Ah, but if you extend that you’ll be staying longer than 180 days” came the reply. 1-1. “Yes, but we haven’t extended yet” I said. 2-1.Now, a new stipulation came into place in November that requires anyone on an employment visa to be earning over $25,000 a year. The idea was to stop Chinese workers flooding the country to take on low paid work which could be done by Indian workers. Unfortunately, we are caught in the net too as we are‘paid’ an allowance of about £130 per month. Consequently, the officer said that we shouldn’t be here on an employment visa so we will need to leave the country. Immediately! Game over.So my thoughts turned to my mum reading the Daily Mail, and stories of illegal immigrants being thrown out of India. I never thought it would end like this.Except it hasn’t – just yet! VSO are attempting to get an exclusion clause inserted into this stipulation so that the thousands of voluntary and charity workers that are in India aren’t removed from the Country.Hopefully it’s just an oversight by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Otherwise we’ll be home in May!