Non-Issue of Visa to Surrogate Parents The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued circular No. 462 dated 03.11.2015 which is addressed, among others, to Indian Missions/Posts abroad, wherein it has been instructed that: (i) No visa should be issued by the Indian Missions/Posts to foreign nationals intending to visit India for commissioning surrogacy. (ii) No permission should be granted by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officers (FRROs)/ Foreigners Registration Officers (FROs) to Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders to commission surrogacy in India. (iii) No exit permission should be granted by the FRROs/ FROs to the child/children to be born through surrogacy to foreign nationals including OCI cardholders. However, for child/children born through surrogacy already commissioned on or before issue of this Circular, exit permission will be decided by FRROs/FROs on a case to case basis. (iv) Visa, if any granted by Indian Missions/Posts to foreign nationals and permission, if any, granted by the FRROs/FROs to OCI cardholders, for commissioning surrogacy in India, from the date of issue of this Circular and date of receipts of the Circular, will be cancelled and the applicants will be informed of the position immediately. All such requests received by Indian Missions/Posts are in the form of applications for medical visas for the purpose of commissioning surrogacy in India. In the last three years, 160,484 medical visas were issued by our Missions/Posts abroad. However, separate figures for visas issued for surrogacy cases are not available for this period. Medical visas were being issued in all cases where documentation submitted by the applicants were complete, until the Ministry of Home Affairs issued circular No. 462 dated 03.11.2015. The Minister of State for the external Affairs Gen. Dr. V. K. Singh (Retd.) provided this information in reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
