working while on tourist/student/PIO visa

GoanCanuck

Wanderlustress, your best bet is to try and get a job with a travel/tourism based organisation provided you have a PIO card. Otherwise just forget about it.

livin-in-india

i know tons of foreigners who do some form of work in india, yet it is all private enterprise. find an area full of foreigners and make some nice pesto, tofu, or whatever, and you've got yourself a little discrete business with excellent word-of-mouth. have skills to teach something to foreigners- it's another great option.

many find it so easy and delightful to serve other foreigners and make some money along the way. some indians can be very nosey and petty (especially in smaller towns with less opportunity), so a little success on your part that is too visible can bite you in the ass.

GoanCanuck

You consider an Indian who is rightly concerned about a foreign citizen working illegally in his small town to be nosey and petty.

icetea

wander,

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound aggressive, although I obviously did sound so

The bitterness is mine too, I am jobless in India and supposed to stay so for another year, since it is illegal and all that. No decent company would hire me or you illegally, there's no benefit for them, like in western countries...where they might prefer it since they would pay you less than the locals.

Unqualified work will be next to impossible to get here, even provided legal permission. The only way is to do something on your own...start selling things on e-bay...work through the internet as a freelancer on guru or other sites of this sort.... or use your cooking skills, etc. Some posters had nice inputs on this....you have to be inventive.

Good luck to you!

NonIndianResident

Getting a PIO card does NOT take "a while and some effort."

If you are eligible, it is very simple. I did it in the US. It was just like getting a visa. I submitted the required materials (as listed on the consulate website) and was able to pick it up within a week.

If you are not eligible, then time and effort are unlikely to help.

For PIO card you have to prove that your (or your spouse's) parent or grandparent was a citizen of India. If you have a passport of one of these, that's all you need.

NonIndianResident

No, it doesn't take a while and some effort to get a PIO card.

If you are eligible for a PIO card you can get it within a week in your local indian consulate, like other visas. I did. Check the consulate website for eligibility. You can only do it in your home country, though, or else within India, which sounds like much more confusion and time.

If you are not eligible for a PIO card, time and effort won't help much.