25 May 2010 | By: Mohamed Hairul Borhan

Indian IT firms are now able to employ unlimited number of foreign nationals after the government removed the existing 20-foreign employees cap per company.

According to Raju Bhatnagar, vice-president (BPO and government relations) for NASSCOM, the relaxation of visa restrictions addresses concerns raised by India’s IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) companies.

Technology companies that sponsor foreigners to work in India will need to give a declaration that the skilled worker has been hired for work in an IT or ITeS company, a software technology park of India, special economic zone dedicated to IT, or an IT unit in a multi-product zone.

The foreign worker being sponsored will also have to give a declaration stating that his annual salary is in excess of US$25,000 per annum. The salary cap is being introduced to ensure only highly skilled workforce comes to the country, a government official said.

Last year, the labour ministry had, in consultation with the home ministry, introduced a number of changes in the visa rules after it found that there were thousands of Chinese workers, including low-skilled ones, such as cooks and masons, employed in power and steel projects being executed by Chinese contractors.

The government had fixed the limit of employment visas to 1 per cent of the total people employed on a project, subject to a maximum of 20 employees. For relaxation in the upper limit, companies were required to take permission from the labour ministry.

The IT industry has found the mechanism cumbersome and said there was no clarity on the kind of references that were required to be furnished by companies.

NASSCOM, the industry body, had lobbied hard against the move arguing that the industry need foreign professionals to run their business smoothly. However, there is no change in the ceiling on the total number of foreign employees for steel and power companies, which remains at 40 per company.

Courtesy of IBEF