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The Commerce Ministry will consult IT industry body Nasscom to decide on an action plan against the US move to increase professional visa fees as it does not want to take steps that the industry considers “too harsh’’.
“We have already held an internal meeting looking at all options such as holding bilateral consultations with the US and approaching the World Trade Organization, but will take a final decision only after consulting the industry,” a Commerce Ministry official told BusinessLine .
In December, US President Barack Obama brought in a legislation which introduced a $4,000 fee for certain categories of H-1B visa and $4,500 for L1 visa. The visa fee hike hurts Indian IT companies operating in the US the most since it is only for companies that employ more than 50 foreigners or which have more foreigners than locals working for them.
Nasscom Chairman BVR Mohan Reddy said the body may recommend bilateral negotiations and some give and take to sort out the matter.
For bilateral negotiations“We will probably get into a mode of saying that there is need for some bilateral give and take. We have free market access for most of US (products) at this point of time. We are importing enormous amount of hardware and software. Therefore, we recommend that we need to have bilateral negotiations on give and take at government to government level,” Reddy told BusinessLine .
While Nasscom, in its representations to the government so far, has been talking about the huge losses (estimated at $400 million annually) the IT industry would be incurring because of the visa fee hike, individually no company has come out in the open criticising the US move, the official said.
Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy reportedly said that the increase in H-1B and L-1 visas will not impact the growth of the Indian IT sector.
The company’s margins will be affected by only 0.30 basis points because of the recent increase in costs of visas, its chief executive Vishal Sikka had said.
“Since the US is a big market for Indian IT companies, we feel that individual companies hesitate to openly challenge decisions taken by the US government and are also reluctant in sharing data that can help us argue our case better both bilaterally and multilaterally,” the official added. The Indian IT sector’s exports were around $82 billion in 2014-15, with a big chunk going to the US.
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