India eases visa rules to promote IT/ ITeS sector

In a significant move, the Government of India has eased the visa regulations for employment in the country’s IT sector enabling the domestic firms to recruit foreign nationals according to their requisites. With a view to promote the information technology sector, Indian foreign ministry has recently issued fresh instructions to all its overseas missions notifying them of the relaxed visa procedures for the IT and ITeS companies in the country. In addition, the Ministry of External Affairs has also circulated a list of activities in the IT sector to its missions abroad with a view to enable them to recognize expert professional and dispense work visas.

NASSCOM, the nodal agency for the Indian IT and ITeS sector, has welcomed the move saying that the new norms deals with the problems of the IT and BPO industry vis-à-vis the employment visas. Quoting NASSCOM vice-president, BPO and government relations, Raju Bhatnagar, a website reports that as per the new norms, the IT firms sponsoring foreign employees in India would be required to provide a statement that the professional has been recruited for employment in any IT or ITeS firm, a software technology park in India, any special economic zone (SEZ) focused on IT or an IT firm located in a multi-product zone.

Then again, the sponsored foreign employee would also have to provide a declaration stating that his or her annual pay package in more than $25,000. The government has introduced a ceiling on the salary on the foreign employees hired by the IT and ITeS firms to make certain that highly expert professionals are only allowed to come to India. It may be noted here that in 2009 the Ministry of Labor in consultation with the Ministry for Home Affairs had brought in several modifications in the visa norms when it was detected that numerous low skilled Chinese workers, including masons and cooks, were working in the steel and power projected being implemented by contractors from China.

Following this, the government had set the cap of service visas to one per cent of the overall employees in a project dependent on an upper limit of 20 employees. In order to slacken the ceiling, it was mandatory for the companies to seek a go-ahead from the labor ministry. For the IT industry, this was a burden, more so because the amended norms did not specify the type of references the companies should furnish to employ foreign nationals in India.

At this stage, NASSCOM took up the case of the IT firms emphasizing that there was an acute requirement for highly skilled foreign employees this sector for unhindered operation of their business. And such intense lobbying by NASSCOM has eventually led the government to change the visa norms for the IT and ITeS firms and do away with the impediments confronted by this export-oriented sector.