Amit Shah Launches FCRA 2.0 Portal And E-OCI Card To Enhance Digital Governance
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on Monday launched the FCRA 2.0 Portal and the Electronic Overseas Citizen of India (e-OCI) Card, aimed at strengthening digital governance, simplifying regulatory compliance and improving citizen services.
The initiatives were launched in the presence of Union Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Director of the Intelligence Bureau and other senior officials.
The FCRA 2.0 Portal has been developed to digitise and streamline all major processes under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), including registration, renewal, filing of annual returns and other regulatory services. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the upgraded platform is designed to reduce paperwork, accelerate processing of applications and strengthen real-time monitoring of foreign contributions.
Hosted on the National Government Cloud (MeghRaj), the portal features Aadhaar-based authentication, e-Sign facilities, OCR-based document analysis, integrated dashboards and API-based integration with key government databases, including PAN, Aadhaar, OCI, NGO Darpan and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India’s Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) system.
The ministry said around 14,500 organisations currently hold active FCRA registrations, while 15,000–20,000 applications and nearly 17,000 annual returns are processed annually. The new platform also incorporates provisions of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Rules, 2026 and has been designed to support future features such as an AI-powered chatbot, mobile access and dedicated dashboards for banks.
Addressing the event, Amit Shah said the portal reflects the government’s efforts to leverage technology to improve governance, reduce procedural delays and strengthen oversight of foreign contributions. He said digitisation would eliminate the need for physical submission of documents while improving transparency and compliance monitoring.
The Home Minister also launched the e-OCI Card, a fully digital platform that enables Overseas Citizen of India applicants to complete the entire application process online, including submission of applications, uploading of documents and downloading of digitally generated OCI cards after approval.
Existing OCI cardholders will also be able to obtain digital OCI cards in most cases without submitting fresh applications or undergoing physical verification. Under the new system, OCI cardholders will no longer be required to obtain a new OCI booklet after receiving a new passport beyond the age of 20. Instead, they will only need to update their passport details online.
According to the ministry, the e-OCI system is expected to benefit more than 50 lakh OCI cardholders by reducing paperwork, enabling digital verification, minimising the risk of loss or damage to physical documents and facilitating faster immigration clearance through integration with digital immigration systems.
