India imposes limits on employment visas for foreign nationals

[Newsjock]

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=94482

The Union Ministry of Labour & Employment & Training has recently issued revised guidelines in relation to Employment Visa's ("EV") issued to foreign nationals. The guidelines are intended to stem the influx of unskilled labour into India, thereby giving the Indian workforce a greater chance for employment opportunities. The gist of the guidelines is to restrict the issuance of EVs to 1% of the total number of workers working on a project with a minimum of five workers and a maximum of twenty workers, except in the case of the power and steel sector. In the case of the power and steel sector, the maximum limit has been temporarily increased to forty workers till June 2010.

... On the flipside, communication from the Indian Government suggests that rules may be relaxed that prohibit foreigners on B-visas from working in India for the multi billion dollar IT sector that requires foreign expertise to operate smoothly.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264461

T.V. Mohandas Pai, board member and director, human resources, Infosys, spoke to Outlook about the government’s new visa regulations and how they are impacting business.

Were you expecting changes in rules for hiring foreign nationals?
We had no warning. We met the home minister later, who said the changes are meant to curb unskilled labour immigration. But it hasn’t worked that way—everyone in business is being impacted. Highly skilled people are finding it impossible to come here.

Isn’t the limit—one per cent of the workforce—adequate?

While India asks other countries to raise quotas for Indians immigrants, it’s not right to impose individual quotas on companies here. It’s ridiculous. India should think of a national quota, on the lines of the h1b. Infosys needs to move professionals around freely; a quota that disregards company size is absolutely unreasonable.

[Skittles]

1. hypocrites

nothing new

[kywildcat]

2. This, and the 40% tax levied against foreign born

workers is called checkmate. The can send half their population around the world to work-and countries like ours take them in. It's now prohibitively expensive to ex pat someone to India-and they know it. But pretty darn cheap to bring them here.
edit for spelling

[Elwood P Dowd]

3. Our so called "free trade" policies work the same way.

We charge a 2% tariff and zero VAT on imports while our foreign trading partners hit our products with up to 30% VAT, and it's legal according to the WTO agreement Clinton and the republicans embraced in 1994. They also heavily subsidize most exports and we don't. Our trade policies are a "lose-lose" proposition.