Aadhaar For NRIs Without Waiting Period: Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on her first budget presented on Friday proposed that NRIs holding Indian passports be given Aadhaar cards on arrival in India without the mandatory wait period.

Sitharaman said that the cards could be providedwithout NRIs having to wait for the mandated 180 days.

The other proposals made by the Finance Minister for NRIs is an investment in the country would be made much easier by merging the NRI portfolio route with foreign portfolio investment.

She also said that in order to provide NRIs seamless access to Indian equities, NRI portfolio investment route will be merged with the foreign portfolio in investment route adding that annual global investors' meet would be organized in India, using NIIF as the anchor to get key sets of global players to come and invest in India.

Sitharaman in her budget speech also mentioned that now one can give Aadhaar number even for filing Income Tax return. She said that everywhere one needs to quote PAN but now instead of PAN one can give Aadhaar number.