US secretary of state John Kerry today said the US government would likely tweak some aspects of the US immigration bill that has already passed vote with the Senate, and which if passed in its current form would impact revenues of Indian IT companies.
On a visit to India, secretary Kerry was addressing a joint conference with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj who said she had raised concerns India had over the immigration bill.
The immigration bill, among other measures, requires foreign companies operating in the US to hire more local talent by putting a cap on foreign worker visas.
Aimed at creating more jobs for US citizens, the bill, if passed in its current form, could have erased about one-quarters of the USD 45 billion revenues Indian IT companies derive by working with US clients, according to an estimate by industry body Nasscom.
Also read: US Immigration Bill can seriously impact Indian IT: Nasscom
"We are aware of the need to make sure more people travel to the US," Kerry said, "President Obama feels that the bill needs some amending and may support some changes."
The US state secretary added that he anyway did not foresee the bill being put to vote in the next several months in the Congress, before the US holds midterm elections in November this year.
"It is the first time such a senior person has acknowledged that changes are required [to the bill in its current form]," former Nasscom chairman Som Mittal told CNBC-TV18's Shereen Bhan in an interview.
Saying the bill would have also hurt the US economy, Mittal said he was hopeful the new Senate [post midterm elections] would be "more sympathetic [to Indian concerns]."
"We remain concerned about issues and provisions that we have already raised and which we had already conveyed our concerns about," incumbent Nasscom chief R Chandrasekhar said.
"However, the signals are positive and that is something, which certainly we would appreciate."
Below is the transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18.
Q: US Secretary of State John Kerry saying that they take onboard India's concerns with regards to immigration reforms very clearly also saying that the Obama administration supports amendments to the immigration bill and that this bill is unlikely to be taken up by the house in its current form anytime soon, your first reaction?
Chandrasekhar: We have seen that the US immigration bill has gotten into some difficulties in the legislative process in the US and also that no action was likely during the current year but having said that there are two things which remain a matter of concern to us.
One is that given the importance that immigration has to the US -- and I am not talking about high skilled immigration but also about the overall immigration issues which is a big issue in the US -- the bill in some form is likely at some point in time maybe next year.
So we remain concerned about those issues which we have already raised and those provisions which we had already conveyed our concerns about. So that remains there.
The second thing is that there are a set of administrative actions which are quite possible in the near term and while most of these are likely to be focussed again on the larger immigration question and things like border security and so on -- there again we do have concerns that the issues of relevance to us should not be dealt within a manner that is inimical to the work and business of the IT industry. This in turn is also, we believe, detrimental to the US economy.
So these two concerns remain even though the immediate likelihood of any passage of the bill has receded.
Q: How would you read the fact the Obama administration is now talking about making amendments to the bill before this is taken any further?
Mittal: This is very good news. This is the first time that at such senior level there has been acknowledgement that changes are required.
As we all know, the comprehensive immigration bill is good, America needs it. It is just that there were some provisions, which were almost focused at Indian IT companies but not on US companies that have the same model. So it wasn't giving a level-playing field and it could have hurt US business.
The US today is running short of technical resources. In fact there are more jobs open than that get filled up. So it is their need itself and it would have harmed US business.
So it is good acknowledgement. We do hope that next year the bill gets passed and as you know that in the House [of Representatives], the amendment did not contain those provisions.
So hopefully when the Senate elections happen, we do not know what kind of Senate we are going to have this November but hopefully that Senate would be as sympathetic towards our concerns as the House has been.
Q: Here we have both sides talking about deepening and strengthening the strategic partnership that India and US enjoy. In the light of what we have heard from John Kerry today, what we have heard from our own government and the possibility of both sides building on this relationship, do you believe that we are likely to see a climb down on the visa issues which could take care of the problems India has with the bill?
Chandrasekhar: I think that there is definitely higher awareness of both our concerns as well as the possible adverse impact on the US economy itself and on the competitiveness of US companies themselves. This is in part because of some of the efforts that have been put in from NASSCOM in the past as well as some of the inputs that have come in from US companies themselves.
Having said that we still remain concerned and we will continue to flag these issues and till all the fine print is seen of whatever legislation is likely to come up we will certainly have to keep an awareness of this side. However the signals being given are positive and that is something which certainly we would appreciate.
