 "Indian IT's worry on current row with US")
The segment gets almost two-thirds of its business from the US and is heavily dependent on US visas. Though many support India’s reaction to the treatment given to Devyani Khobragade, India’s officiating consul general in New York, they also hope the two nations would settle the row soon. For, they fear, this could adversely impact the processing of visas, at a time when our information technology (IT) sector is seeing a rise in demand for its services after a long lull.
“There will definitely be an impact on visa processing at the consulate,” said an immigration expert. The official, who did not wish to be identified, added the US government’s policies towards India weren’t expected to change but officers’ sentiment about India could be affected, leading to visa processing-related trouble. “There is likely to be a bias against India in the minds of the officers.”
India is the fourth-largest country for non-immigrant visas issued by the US and fifth largest in immigrant visas. In financial year 2012, India was issued 582,098 non-immigrant visas and 24,759 immigrant ones. The country was also issued 80,630 H-1B visas, a majority of which are used by IT companies to send employees to US.
Som Mittal, president of Nasscom, the Indian IT lobby body, said it was important that both governments quickly find a solution. “We do not see the current row impacting business in the short term (but) this definitely doesn’t augur well for the two countries, which have a lot to achieve together.”
Ganesh Natarajan, vice-chairman and chief executive of Zensar Technologies, believed the issue was likely to be resolved in the next three to four days.
A couple of years earlier, incidents came to light where Indian IT professionals were handcuffed and deported for allegedly travelling to the US on a wrong visa. The issue was at its peak in 2010-11 and taken up strongly by Indian officials with the US government.
(Itika Sharma Punit contributed to this report)