Indian IT industry calls for simpler visa norms

Wednesday, 09 April 2003, 19:30 IST
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India's premier IT industry lobby group Tuesday said it would work with the government and other agencies to simplify visa regulations with a view to curbing harassment of software professionals overseas.

NEW DELHI: "We are working with ministry of external affairs, embassies in India and Indian embassies overseas to clarify visa technicalities," said Som Mittal, chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom). "We are also planning to set up a facilitation centre that will pre-screen visa requirements of companies and offer escort services," Mittal, who is also the president and CEO of Digital Globalsoft Ltd., told a press conference here. The move comes close on the heels of a series of incidents in the last few months of harassment of Indian software professionals in foreign countries for alleged visa irregularities. In the latest incident, nearly 15 software professionals working for I-Flex Solutions, one of India's leading mid-size software solutions firms, were detained and questioned in Amsterdam last month over visa-related matters. The employees were later told by the Dutch authorities to leave the country within a week. The chief executive of its Netherlands subsidiary, Senthil Kumar, was also arrested in London, apparently following a complaint by the Dutch government. Police in Indonesia detained the chief executive officer of another IT company, Polaris Software, in December last year. Arun Jain was released following the intervention of the Indian government. Earlier this month, 270 Indian IT professionals were detained in Malaysia over alleged visa irregularities. The Malaysian government later apologised and ordered a probe into the incident. Mittal said the Indian IT industry would work with the government to create a special category of visas for professionals representing the knowledge-based industries. "While we need to sensitise the Indian IT industry on various visa-related issues, we also have to work with overseas immigration authorities and educate them on Indian IT business models," he added. Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said the lobby group was also working with the ministries of IT and commerce to create an international mechanism for addressing visa-related disputes. "There should be a dispute settlement mechanism to take care of visa problems. Today we have no international mechanism where one can raise visa-related disputes," he said. "These (visa disputes) are kind of non-tariff barriers that restrict the free movement of services." India's cost-effective software army caters to a wide customer range, including global financial giants and telecom equipment makers. This has helped the industry to log a 29 percent growth in software exports to $7.5 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2002 over the previous year. This compares with just $1 billion worth of software exports during 1996-97.
Source: IANS