NASSCOM says US visa fee hike to affect Indian IT firms
The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), the nodal organization for the Indian IT and ITeS firms, has released a statement saying that United States federal government’s plan to intensely hike visa fee with a view to amass funds for the country’s border security requirement would have a significant bearing on the Indian information technology sector.
According to reports, the suggested hike in the US visa fee likely to be raised from the current $2,500 for each visa to approximately $4,500.
Quoting the statement released by NASSCOM, a business website reports that the US Senate has passed the Border Security Bill on Thursday last intends to raise funds to the tune of $600 million by hiking the fees for H-1B and L-1 visas. This move will have a considerable effect on the Indian IT industry, the statement said, adding, every year numerous Indian software companies obtain thousands of H-1B and L-1 visas to fly their professionals to the United States to work as on-site engineers at locations of their clients.
Meanwhile, several leading Indian IT firms have not only echoed NASSCOM’s concern in this regard, but also slammed the United States’ move to hike the visa fees exorbitantly. Describing the US Border Security Bill as ‘unfortunate’ and ‘discriminatory’, India’s second largest IT firm Infosys Technologies Ltd. has said that the move has come at a time when businesses need to be further competitive in an unrestricted market setting.
A statement issued by Infosys said that it was inopportune that the visa fee was being hiked in a prejudiced manner at a time when it calls for opening the markets with a view to enable the businesses to become more viable in the international market. The Indian IT major pointed out that as a globally leading software firm, Infosys has been employing US citizens at every level, even for its worldwide internship program ‘InStep’.
According to T. V. Mohandas Pai, a member of the Infosys board of directors, they need to study the US Border Security Bill minutely to find out its precise impact on the Indian IT sector. Pai, who is also the head of the company’s human resources, research and education department, further said that since the last few quarters, Infosys has been conducting a program to recruit approximately 1,000 professionals in the United States in different areas, such as consulting, program management, engagement management, systems analysis and architects.
A senior official at Wipro, India’s third largest exporter of IT and ITeS services, said that the company would support the concerns expressed by NASSCOM in this regard, while Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country’s largest IT firm, has refused to comment on the issue.