Karnataka conveys visa concerns to May

Nasscom and few Indian startups had a discussion with the ministers regarding academic and industry collaborations and public private partnerships

United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May may offer concessions on short-term visas to Indian information technology professionals after she heard concerns.  
 
“We have flagged the visa issue. The UK prime minister has said they will have some kind of strategic plan for that. She has said she will come back to us on it. We have told her we are not looking for long-term immigration but 3 to 12 months. The response has been warm,” said Priyank Kharge, minister in the government of Karnataka
 
Kharge’s comments came after May headed back home finishing her three-day trip. May, who has pledged to reduce immigration into the UK, has played tough during her visit, where she met Prime Minister  Narendra Modi and reiterated the stance Indian nationals got more work visas than those of the US, Canada, Australia, and China combined. She skipped technology services companies in Bengaluru.
 
Instead, she opted to visit aerospace systems firm Dynamatic Technologies, which signed a £120-million deal with Airbus to supply systems that will generate 60 jobs across two sites in the UK and 100 jobs in Bengaluru.
 
Bengaluru makes up over a third of India’s software exports. India’s software exports to the UK are $20 billion.
 
Indian tech industry has warned the new visa rules that increase threshold of salaries and language restrictions for family members could impact the UK economy.
 
Last week May approved new visa norms that increased the threshold of salaries paid to IT professionals who are on work to the UK and also tightened language norms for their family members. The timing of issuing new visa norms, ahead of her three day India visit had miffed the Indian technology services industry, which warned that the move would backfire and hurt the UK economy.
 
Both Modi and Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah have asked the UK government saying the movement of skilled tech workers from India should be seen as a trade priority rather than an immigration issue.

The prime minister of UK has also requested to have a nodal agency, a point contact for MSME”s in UK, which we have agreed for it, “ Kharge said.
 
A delegation from Karnataka is travelling to London tonight on a five day trip to explore more partnership with the UK government.  Karnataka government is looking to collaborate with the Thames Valley and also the digital media city. They plan to explore option to see how they  can have some center of excellence for innovations, aerospace.
 
It is five day trip that starts on Wednesday. The delegation will visit Manchester, Buckingham Technology city, Thames Valley and probably Cambridge Biotechnology center  to see if there is some collaboration they can have. There is a priority of center of excellence for aerospace and cyber security.  The government is also hopeful of signing a few MOU’s in this trip.
 
May arrived in Bengaluru on Tuesday for a seven-hour packed trip, which includes visit to a school, a temple and headquarters of Dynamatics Technologies, an aerospace company, which has a model that provides local jobs in UK, while taking advantage of India's traditional strengths. She has had a roundtable discussion with five startups that included Radiowalla, English Dost, Cardiac design labs, Data Glen and SAHA Fund.
 
The industry body Nasscom and a few Indian startups had a discussion with the ministers regarding academic and industry collaborations and public private partnerships.
 
“She came in with a good understanding of the whole startup movement of India. There is a huge opportunity for collaboration between the two countries. We discussed the need to find ways in which the two countries could collaborate for the benefit of startups from both sides which is access to markets, capital, launch pads for UK companies to go out or the Indian companies to go global, to target the UK, Europe and North Africa market. We also discussed with the ministers earlier on people centric topics like academic clusters, etc. These were short meetings but very encouraging,”  said, Ravi Gururaj who is the chairman of Nasscom Product Council and was a part of the meeting.
 
Mohandas Pai, chairman of Aarin Capital said that they explained about the startups to May. May also interacted with the startups.
 
“She told us that we must connect technology firms between UK and India. We must work together and have a partnership. The technology and innovations between UK and Bengaluru should be connected. She was very impressed. It was a very productive meeting,” Pai added.
 
“She wants to forge a strong relation between the two countries, especially in the tech sector... The idea was that UK should have more investments in India and India in the UK and employ more people there as well. She also talked about certain R&D grants from the UK government for the tech companies. She seemed to be promoting the UK IT and tech industry to the Indian technology sector -- investors, startups and the IT services companies like Infosys, Wipro, Mindtree, etc.  She used ‘living bridge’, a term that Modi uses,” said Ankita Vashistha, chief executive officer of Saha Fund.