Bhubaneswar: The Centre has opened a Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Bhubaneswar to strengthen institutional framework for management of foreign nationals.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government is expanding FRRO network across the country. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has directed to establish FRROs in all state capitals by 2027.Pursuant to the direction, five new FRROs have been set up since 2025 – three at Jaipur, Chandigarh and Guwahati in 2025 and two at Aizawl (Mizoram) and Amravati (Andhra Pradesh) this year.
Recently, three new FRRO offices have been notified at Kohima (Nagaland), Agartala (Tripura) and Bhubaneswar (Odisha). Earlier, Bhubaneswar was under jurisdiction of FRRO, Hyderabad, while Kohima and Agartala were under FRRO, Kolkata.
With this, total number of FRRO offices in the country has gone up to 20, located at Ahmedabad, Amravati, Amritsar, Aizawl, Agartala, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Chennai, Cochin, Chandigarh, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kohima, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai and Trivandrum.
The government is pursuing establishment of FRROs in remaining states including Bihar, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.
The FRRO regulates, tracks and facilitates lawful stay of foreign nationals, administers post-arrival registration, issues Registration Certificate/Residential Permit, grants permission to visit protected and restricted areas, issues exit permits and monitors compliance with immigration laws.
The expansion aims to ensure service accessibility, enhance regulatory compliance, facilitate legitimate foreign visitors and strengthen national security requirements under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025.
