Global Pravasi Rishta Portal by Ministry of External Affairs, India

The Ministry of External Affairs, India offers a Global Pravasi Rishta Portal for the global Indian Diaspora.

The portal is meant as a tool for communication between the Ministry of External Affairs, Indian Missions, and the Indian diaspora abroad. Pravasi Rishta means “expatriate relationships” in English.

The Government of India launched this portal on Dec 20, 2020 with the aim for being an all-in-one platform for Indian diaspora and Indian Missions across the globe. The portal is aimed at facilitating communication between Indian Diaspora, Indian Missions, and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) both in emergencies and normal times. Currently, there are 32 million PIO/OCI cardholders and 18 million NRIs across the glove. 

Until December 30, there had been no one-stop communication channel for the Government of India to connect with Indian Diaspora and communicate the existing/upcoming schemes to them. The lack of such a single-key communication tool as the Global Pravasi Rishta portal was strongly felt during the emergency that the Coronavirus pandemic created by bringing international air travel to a standstill early in 2020.

This portal is created to enable the registration of Indian diaspora members i.e. NRIs, PIOs and the OCIs which is not just going to facilitate the Indian government to connect with the overseas Indian community but also facilitate NRIs, OCIs and PIOs community by connecting them to various new and existing government schemes benefiting them in various areas of interest. This portal and app will also assist during any crisis management and lend a helping hand to the NRIs and PIOs. The rishta portal will enable communication with the diaspora on a real-time basis and will have the ability to issue emergency alerts and advisories. It will also enable the diaspora to reach the consular officers and services in time of emergencies.

The portal would provide latest information on the existing and new government schemes launched for the benefits of the diaspora. It can also be used for collecting opinion of the diaspora on important policy issues, sharing e-newsletters, conducting surveys, online B2B matchmaking, presentation of technical innovations, submission of diaspora literary & art works etc.

The portal will disseminate alerts, advisories, and information on visa, passport, immigration and other consular services, in addition to helping NRIs and Indian-origin foreign nationals with crisis management in real time. The portal and app will list various events and ceremonies organized by Indian embassies and consulates, inviting participation and volunteering by Indian diaspora members of different age groups. In short, the new communication tools will give overseas Indians a single-key access to the consular officers and emergency services at any juncture.

With the Indian government recognizing the importance of the Indian diaspora and engaging with them – 'not just ceremonially, but at every step' – in different ways, the Global Pravasi Rishta Portal would not only provide latest information on the existing and new government schemes launched for the benefit of the diaspora but will also involve taking the opinion of the Indian diaspora on policy issues, communicate on real time basis, share emergency alerts, reach Consular office in emergency situation, sharing e-newsletters, conducting surveys, presentation of technical innovations, et al.