India has conveyed its concerns over the ongoing H-1B visa processing issue to “senior level” officials in the U.S. administration, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
“I think our concerns at a very senior level have already been conveyed to the government of USA. I would not like to get into the details except that Indian IT companies are giving good value addition to U.S. companies,” Minister of Law as well as Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said on the sidelines of ICEGOV conference.
His remarks cames after the U.S. government ’s decision to temporarily suspended premium processing of H-1B visas from April 3. Under the current systemCurrently, an for H-1B visas for potential employees can pay an additional fee may be for paid for expedited H-1B processing., which is known as premium processing.
The temporary suspension could last up to six months, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
“They (Indian firms) are making them more competitive and giving them extraordinary value-addition.... I am given to understand that they have paid around $USD 20 billion tax revenue in the last 5 years. They have created 4,00,000 jobs... Indian IT companies and IT professionals are giving lot of opening to American companies in India,” the minister said.
He also said that the whole IT movement in the world is based on sharing and reciprocity.
Talking about Aadhaar, the Minister said the cost of developing Aadhaar infrastructure was less the US$2 per digital identity. “…Nearly 20 million authentications take place on Aadhaar everyday. Each of these would have traditionally taken at least a week and minimum 8-10 pages of paperwork. The e-authentication is itself resulting in annual savings of US $15 billion,” he said.
Referring to recent reports on the misuse of Aadhaar data, Mr Prasad said that the unique ID is completely safe and secure and that some people were trying to do “some mischief” and action has been initiated against them.
The minister also announced that India will offer PhD scholarship to 100 students from all countries participating in the ICEGOV. In addition, India will also host the next meeting of all CERTs from Asia-Pacific later this year.
