8.81 lakh Indians renounced their citizenship in last 7 years, govt tells Lok Sabha

An online portal has been activated since August 2021 for renunciation of citizenship (Representative image)

More than 8.81 lakh Indians have renounced their citizenship since 2015, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) informed the Lok Sabha on December 14 in response to a query raised by Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy.

"8,81,254 Indians renounced their citizenship in the last seven years till Sept 30, 2021, as per information available with MEA (Ministry of External Affairs)," the Home Ministry said in response to the question.

The MHA further provided a break-up of the data, which showed that the maximum number of citizenships was renounced in 2019, and the minimum in 2020, as per the data available for the past seven years.

In 2015, a total of 1,31,489 citizens gave up their citizenship, 1,41,603 citizens in 2016, 1,33,049 in 2017, 1,34,561 in 2018, 1,44,017 in 2019, 85,248 in the pandemic-hit 2020 and 1,11,287 citizens renounced their citizenship till September 30, 2021, the MHA said.

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Reddy, in his question, also sought to know whether the process to renounce the citizenship has been simplified.

Responding to this, MoS Home Nityananda Rai said that an online portal has been activated since August this year to simplify the process.

"Citizenship of India may be renounced under provisions of Section 8 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 read with rule 23 of the Citizenship Rules, 2009. The online portal for renunciation of Indian citizenship has been activated in August, 2021. End-to-end processing of renunciation applications is carried out in the online Citizenship Module," Rai said.