The Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) has welcomed the US administration’s move to resume the processing of H-1B visas after a gap of five months.

The processing of visas was suspended five months ago following a huge rush of applications for H-1B visas, which is popular among Indian IT professionals.

Raju Bhatnagar, Secretary General, BCIC, said it is a mutually beneficial move. “The initiative sends the right signals to the Indian IT industry which saw a sudden downturn due this directive from the Trump administration. The resumption of the H-1B visas also reiterates the Indian IT sector’s contribution to the US companies and their economy in general,” he said.

Bhatnagar, however, sounded a word of caution. “While the Indian IT industry has acted responsibly, it is also a fact that it has misused the H-1B facility. With the Trump administration demonstrating an intent to crack down sharply on H-1B visa misuse, we hope that such misuse by the Indian IT industry will be a matter of the past.”

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it had resumed the fast processing of H-1B visas subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap that has been set at 65,000.

Premium processing also resumed for the annual 20,000 additional petitions that are set aside to hire workers with a US higher educational degree.

The restructuring of the H-1B programme was expected to severely impact Indian professionals, especially those employed in the IT sector.

The scheme allowed employers to procure highly skilled non-immigrant workers from other nations, at wages lower than what they are obliged to pay American employees.

The visa allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

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