Washington: The US is going to launch a pilot program in December for the renewal of certain categories of H-1B visas, which will especially benefit a large number of Indian technology professionals.
The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant visa that allows American companies to hire foreign workers in certain occupations. Technology companies hire thousands of employees every year from countries like India and China. The pilot program will cover only 20,000 candidates and was announced when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the US in June.
America does not want the waiting time to be prolonged
“Demand (for US visas) in India is still very high,” Julie Stiff, deputy assistant secretary of state for visa services, said in an interview. We don’t want the waiting period to be six, eight or 12 months. We want to ensure that passengers get interviews as quickly as possible. On the one hand, we are doing this through a domestic visa renewal program that is largely focused on India. Over a three-month period from December, the Ministry of External Affairs will issue 20,000 visas to foreign nationals already in the country.
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20,000 visas will be issued in the first batch
He said, “We will issue 20,000 visas in the first batch. A majority of these will be Indian nationals living in the US and we will expand that. “Since Indians are the largest pool of skilled professionals in the US, we hope India will benefit from this and people will get visas,” Stiff said. There will be no need to go back to India or anywhere else for renewal and interview.
This announcement was made during the visit of PM Modi
The Ministry of External Affairs had been working towards starting such a program on a pilot basis for some time now, but it was formally announced during PM Modi’s visit. Stiff said the US has successfully completed a pilot program to issue “paperless visas,” after which visa stamping or pasting paper to passports will become a thing of the past.
This move is important—leaders of the Indian-American community
The US recently completed a small-scale program at its diplomatic mission in Dublin and is planning to launch it on a larger scale. Stiff said, “It will probably take us 18 months or more to see its widespread use…” In a statement, Indian-American community leader Ajay Jain Bhutoria called the State Department’s move “significant.”
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Tags: America News, Indian, US visa
First published: November 29, 2023, 15:12 IST