The government has put on “top of the radar” the recent visa issues concerning review of US’ H-1B visa and scrapping of the Australian 457 visa scheme that are popular among Indians.
“This is on top of the radar. We will seek political intervention when the time is right,” a top official told BusinessLine .
As the US conducts a review of the H-1B programme, India will collate more data on the jobs created by India’s IT firms in America and create an assessment report in consultation with India IT bellwethers such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said there is “mutuality of interest” in both cases, and that the US cannot ignore the job creation aspect.
MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the US is just reviewing the H-1B visa programme and it remains to be seen what legislative actions will be taken on the matter. He said the government believes it is for the US IT behemoths to make a case for Indian professionals.
Baglay said the Australian government’s scrapping of the 457 visa programme will not impact Indian IT workers.
However, he said India is analysing whether the replacement to the 457 scheme will be equally beneficial for Indians or not.
Baglay also cautioned that India will be seeing Australia’s policy stance under the purview of the India-Australia Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement.
“We understand they are replacing one regime with another. We would like to see the details of it,” he added.