US aim: 6 lakh visas for India

New Delhi: A top US Embassy official has said that they were aiming to process 6 lakh applications in India this year.

Geoff Pyatt, US Charge d' Affaires, after inaugurating new pre-screening windows at the US Consulate General in Chennai on Tuesday said that the number of applications for US visa had increased by 30 per cent during the last fiscal.

However, he did not divulge the exact number of applications received during the period.

Visa applications at the Consulate here had also gone up by 83 per cent for the six-month period ended March 31, 2007.

"Previously, we used to process around 700-800 applications a day, but now we process around 1200," PTI quoted Consul General David T Hopper as saying.

Pyatt cautioned applicants against falling prey to the brokers and agents promising to `get-in documents' required for applications and said that the visa procedures included strict verification of documents.

"An applicant may be permanently disqualified from being issued a visa to US if found with fraudulent documents," he added.

In another development, two US lawmakers have asked nine foreign-based firms, including some leading Indian companies that used 20,000 of such visas, to disclose details about their workforce and their use of the special programme.

As the US Senate gets ready to take up the comprehensive immigration reform legislation, the two top lawmakers - Republican Senator Charles Grassley and Democratic Senator Richard Durbin said, "More and more it appears that companies are using H-1B visas to displace qualified, American workers."

"As we move closer to debate on an immigration bill, I continue to hear how people want to increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to companies. Considering the high amount of fraud and abuse in the visa programme, we need to take a good, hard look at the employers who are using H-1B visas and how they are using them," Grassley said in a statement.

"Supporters claim the goal of the H-1B programme is to help the American economy by allowing companies to hire needed foreign workers. The reality is that too many H-1B visas are being used to facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs to other countries," Senator Durbin said.

(With agency inputs)