Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: The United States is set to begin a pilot programme for domestic renewal of certain categories of H-1B visas in December, a step that will benefit a significantly large number of Indian technology professionals, a US official has said.
This comes months after the White House announced the plan during the state visit of PM Modi in June.
In an interview to PTI, Julie Stufft, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services, said, “In India, the demand (for US visas) is still very high. The wait time of six, eight and 12 months is not what we need and (it is) not indicative of how we view India.”
“We want to make sure that Indian travellers can get appointments as quickly as possible. One way we are doing that is through the domestic visa renewal programme, which is focused very much on India. We are piloting that,” she said.
Over a period of three months, beginning December, the State Department will be issuing 20,000 visas to foreign nationals who are already inside the country.
“We will do 20,000 in the first group. The vast majority of those will be Indian nationals living in the US and we will expand as it goes on,” she added.
