New Delhi: In 2021, a total of 1,414 citizenship certificates were granted by authorities including Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), reads the annual report released by MHA on Monday.

According to the annual report, from 1 April, 2021 till 31 December, 2021, 1,120 citizenship certificates were granted by registration under section 5 and 294 were granted by naturalisation under section 6 of the Citizenship Act, 1955.

The Central Government delegated its powers to grant Indian citizenship by registration or naturalization in respect of foreigners belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Budhist, Christain or Parsi community from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, to Collectors of 13 more districts and Home Secretaries of two more States, the report read.

With this, Collectors of 29 districts and Home Secretaries of 9 States have been authorized to grant citizenship in respect of aforesaid category of migrants. The delegation will speed up the process of granting Indian citizenship to aforesaid category of migrants as the decision would be taken at local level, reads the report.

Maximum number of foreigners from USA

A total of 15,24,469 foreigners visited India during the period from 1 April, 2021 till 31 December, 2021.

The maximum number of foreigners who visited India during this period were from the United States of America (4,29,860) followed by those from Bangladesh (2,40,554), United Kingdom (1,64,143), Canada (80,437), Nepal (52,544), Afghanistan (36,451), Australia (33,864), Germany (33,772), Portugal (32,064) and France (30,374), the report read.

These 10 countries accounted for 74.39% of the total arrival of foreigners during the mentioned period while the rest of the countries accounted for 25.61% of total incoming traffic of foreigners.