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The United States is working in direction of additional lowering the wait time for customer visas for Indians following a lower of 75 per cent final yr, based on US Bureau of Consular Affairs Assistant Secretary Rena Bitter.
In an interview with PTI, Bitter famous that at the moment extra Indians can journey to the USA than in another time in historical past.
“Final yr, the Embassy in India processed 1.4 million visas, explosion of an unimaginable quantity…in each class there is no such thing as a wait time in any respect besides in a single space of journey the place there may be nonetheless some wait time and that’s individuals travelling for the primary time to the USA for tourism,” she mentioned.
“It has been lowered 75 per cent over the past yr and we’re working actually onerous on this. We recognise that it’s an extremely necessary bilateral relationship and the muse of the connection is the people-to-people ties, the enterprise journey and the household ties. All this stuff are necessary to us and in Washington we’re doing quite a lot of work to help this publish (Indian) to allow them to meet the exploding demand,” she added.
Requested concerning the plans for H1B visa, Bitter mentioned the pilot programme which is underway to allow Indians dwelling within the US to resume their H1B visa with out travelling overseas will conclude in February.
“There’s particular place for Indian expert employees in United States, they contribute a lot to our financial system. Indian embassy issued 34 per cent extra H1B visas final yr which can also be the utmost within the historical past of the publish. We take this problem severely and this was an enormous matter of dialog between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden throughout their assembly final yr.
“We launched a pilot programme in January for revalidation of 20,000 Indian expert employees in the USA. The pilot programme will conclude on the finish of this month. It’s going very well and as soon as we full the pilot interval we are going to reevaluate and see what comes subsequent to make it as straightforward as potential for Indians working within the US,” she mentioned.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that permits US firms to make use of international employees in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical experience. Expertise firms rely on it to rent tens of 1000’s of workers every year from nations similar to India and China.
The pilot programme was began months after the White Home introduced the plan in the course of the state go to of Prime Minister Modi in June final yr.
Speaking about pupil visas, Bitter mentioned, “one in 4 worldwide college students finding out in United States is from India. It’s unimaginable as a result of it isn’t solely they’re getting prime notch schooling which we’re actually pleased with however they’re additionally enriching our school rooms with their distinctive perspective and the important thing factors that they bring about to our school rooms.
“They make our college students smarter too…So we’re actually enthusiastic about that. That is actually necessary programme for us to be sure that Indian college students have entry to schooling in the USA and we now have all items in place going ahead to make sure that we meet the demand,” she added.
The variety of Indians who travelled to the USA for greater schooling elevated by 35 per cent and resulted in an all-time excessive of two,68,923 college students within the tutorial yr 2022-23.
Final yr, the US consular workforce in India issued over 1,40,000 pupil visas – greater than in another nation on the earth setting a file for the third yr in a row.