Over 2.06 lakh Indians gave up their citizenship in 2024, says Centre
Kirti Vardhan Singh, the minister of state for external affairs, told Rajya Sabha that 2.16 lakh Indians had given up their citizenship in 2023.
In 2022, more than 2.25 lakh Indians had given up their citizenship. The number was 1.6 lakh in 2021, 85,256 in 2020 and 1.4 lakh in 2019.
The minister provided the data in response to a question by Congress MP Anil Kumar Yadav Mandadi, who had sought to know if the Union government undertakes a 'thorough checkup/survey/inspection before acceding to the request of relinquishment of Indian Citizenship'.
Singh said that a person looking to renounce their Indian citizenship is required to apply online, following which, either a district collector or a consular officer verifies the original passport.
Documents are uploaded and made available to all government departments for their inputs that are to be provided within 30 days, said the minister, adding that a renunciation certificate is issued after this period.
In March, the Union government told Parliament that the number of Indians who gave up their citizenship stood at 1.34 lakh in 2018 and 1.33 lakh in 2017.
'The reasons for renouncing Indian citizenship or taking foreign citizenship are personal and known only to the individual,' the Union government had said.
It added that it recognised the 'potential of the global workplace in an era of knowledge economy', which had brought about a 'transformational change in its engagement with Indian diaspora'.
'A successful, prosperous, and influential diaspora is an asset for India,' said the government. 'India stands to gain a lot from tapping its diaspora networks and productive utilisation of the soft power that comes from having such a flourishing diaspora.'
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