Stating it is “unfortunate” that provisions which are likely to impact the Indian IT firms adversely are present in the immigration reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate, industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), on Friday, said it was hopeful that a “more balanced bill” will come in the House of Representatives.
The U.S. Senate passed Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernisation Act (S.744), on Thursday.
This spells bad news for the over 100 billion domestic IT sector as it may lead to visa constraints and higher costs. The Indian IT services sector gets about 80 per cent of its revenues from the U.S. and European markets. “While it is unfortunate that the negative provisions continued to be there, it’s not a surprise. We are working on the House side where the bill language is a less harmful to global companies and the U.S. customers and are confident that we will have a more balanced bill in the House,” Nasscom said in a statement.
Unfair discrimination
“The passage of S.744 was expected and unfortunately the Senate bill has provisions that arbitrarily single out a group of multi-national information technology companies, it added. Further, the IT body said these proposals amounted to “punitive treatment” of this industry and failed to recognise the vital services that global IT services companies delivered.
