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Anjali Prayag

BANGALORE, March 4

WHAT is well known and discussed threadbare is India's competitive advantage in the IT sector because of its technically trained and English- speaking workforce. And, of course, its willingness to work for lower salaries.

But it's interesting to study how India took advantage of the US immigration laws to push as many of its engineers into the country as possible, says Dr Ron Hira, Post Doctoral Fellow, Centre for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Columbia University.

He was speaking on the impact of onsite labour on the development of the Indian IT industry at a global workshop on `Learning from the Indian development experience in ICT (information, communication and technology),' at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Interestingly, in 1995, therapists (physiotherapists and nurses) were a major group of H1B requestors (mainly from the UK and Japan) to the US Department of Labour. But by the year 1998, computer specialists had chewed the major bite of the H1B pie (57 per cent) while therapists were left with just 14 per cent.

The H1B, popularly known as the Indian IT worker visa, enables about a lakh software professionals to gain entry into the US. In the year 2001, India was the highest applicant in the H1B category. And among the top H1B requestors, are leading Indian companies such as TCS, Satyam, Infosys and Wipro.

In a comparative study of five companies, (two American and three Indian), Dr Hira found that in the year 2001, while the US-based Electronic Data Systems and American Management Systems had between them requested for just about 700 LCAs (labour condition application, which is necessary for H1B), three Indian software giants, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and Satyam had sought 23,700 LCAs.

And the LCA wages for the American companies just formed about 0.15 per cent of their total revenues, while in the case of Indian companies the LCA wages were anywhere between 38 per cent and 70 per cent of the total revenues.

"This demonstrates that utilising the H1B is a critical business strategy for Indian IT firms while it is just one of the tools used by the US firms," says Dr Hira, adding, "And 61-65 per cent of the total annual revenue from the US clients are directly attributable to temporary visa personnel."

But with the unemployment rates of electrical engineers (4.2 per cent) and computer engineers (5 per cent) in the US rising to 4.2 per cent and five per cent, respectively in the year 2002, it might influence the decision this year on putting a cap on H1B visas, feels Dr Hira.

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