India Scraps Foreign Employment Visa Policy While Introducing Another

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Oct. 21 – The Indian government has decided to exchange its current employment visa policy regarding the number of foreign residents a company may employ in favor of a new one.

Taking into account domestic complaints of unskilled laborers flooding in from neighboring countries like China on employment visas, India last year imposed a 1 percent cap on the total people legally allowed to be employed by a company on its projects. Under this policy, most companies could hire a minimum of five foreign individuals and a maximum of 20.

Now, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has removed that policy in favor of a new condition which only allows foreign nationals with a minimum annual salary of US$25,000 to be granted employment visas to work on Indian projects.

“Foreign nationals being sponsored for an employment visa in any sector should draw a salary in excess of US$25,000 per annum. However, this condition of annual floor limit on income will not apply to ethnic cooks, language teachers (other than English), staff working for the embassy/high commission concerned in India,” India’s Ministry of Home Affairs said in a circular.