Indian Representative and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma has expressed his views over the refusals of professional visas for Indian workers during his recent conference with Obama Administration officials. He went on to say that such actions are harmful as Indian professionals have played a crucial role in enhancing America’s economy over the past few years.

Sharma said that he raised this issue as a majority of Indian professionals are involved in innovating employment and work opportunities and in creating wealth too. He expressed an incident when during his visit to Washington when he released a India Brand Equity Foundation report which pointed out towards the direction that Indian firms have produced 300,000 jobs, a majority of them being crafted in the IT sector! He also said that there has been some recent collaborations between Indian firms and American companies too.

Talking about the “globalization” factor, Sharma said that Indian professionals work in other countries, besides US too! Similarly, in India also, we have so many multinational companies which have their R&D hubs in the Indian territories. Therefore, plenty of professionals come to India too. He affirmed that he can name so many chairmen and CEOs of US companies who have confirmed the need of better understanding, generating sensibility about the share and contributions which the Indian firms are making!

He went on to defend that India is an overall service importer also. So it would be wrong to say that jobs are lost!

Keeping all these aspects in mind, Commerce and Industry Minister Sharma has asked US to make the visa restrictions easier for Indian professionals so that the trade relations are aptly maintained between the two countries.