Wipro chairman Azim Premji feels that any likely adverse measures in the newly proposed US Immigration Bill in the US will affect US companies as much as Indian software-services players.
The Bill, which talks about comprehensively overhauling the immigration system in the US, also proposed changes in H-1B visa rules. Indian IT companies fear they would face greater difficulties in procuring the H-1B visas with some ?impractical? procedural clauses embedded in the Bill.
Indian IT companies are also apprehensive about any kind of fee increase in procuring work permits.
?We are confident that some of these conditions are made more practical otherwise it will affect US companies just as much as Indian firms,? said Premji.
He added, ?It is only going to be operative next year, so there is enough time to at least ensure that some of the conditions are made a little more practical, which we are confident they will be.? He said they are still studying the 700-page document but their initial assessments suggest that the implications are manageable.
TK Kurien, CEO (IT business), Wipro, felt that their only concern regarding the Bill will be more on certain procedural issues rather than any impact on costs or profitability. ?We have enough levers on the operational front to keep the operating margins in a positive bias,? he said.
Premji said, ?We have been doing onsite hiring for the past five to six years. Our ratio of American workers is over 35%, which is among the highest in the industry. We have anticipated this problem that eventually this ratio would come to 50:50.?