Centre Opens Three New FRRO Offices to Streamline Foreigner Registration

Kohima: The Centre set up three new Foreigners Regional Registration Offices in Kohima, Agartala, and Bhubaneswar. This move pushes the national count to 20. The expansion follows a direct order from Union Home Minister Amit Shah to put at least one FRRO in every state capital. He wants to help those visiting for tourism, medical care, and education. The government issued this statement on November 2.

Kohima and Agartala formerly fell under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata office. Bhubaneswar was previously managed by the Hyderabad office. Five other locations already went live in 2025. These include Jaipur, Chandigarh, Aizawl, Amravati, and Guwahati.

Officials now aim to cover the states still waiting for dedicated offices. This list includes Bihar, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Meghalaya. Current offices operate in Ahmedabad, Amravati, Amritsar, Aizawl, Agartala, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Chennai, Cochin, Chandigarh, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kohima, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Trivandrum.

This push supports the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025. This law merged four older statutes into one framework. It regulates how foreign nationals enter, stay, move, and leave the country. The Bureau of Immigration relies on these regional officers to enforce rules. They watch for visa violations and overstays. According to the government, the mission is "facilitating the legitimate travel and stay of foreign nationals in India while ensuring effective enforcement of immigration laws and security requirements."