02/03/2010 - Foreign National Worker Quota Guidelines
Global Watch - India
| In Brief
The Ministry of Labour and Employment and Training, Government of India ("MLET") has recently issued revised guidelines for the issuance of an Employment Visa ("EV") to a Foreign National ("FN") to curb, in particular, the influx of unskilled and semi-skilled FNs to India and utilize Indian workers. The guidelines issued are summarized below. |
Guidelines
1. The MLET has prescribed a ceiling in respect of issuance of EVs to FNs for all sectors. This ceiling restricts the issuance of EVs to 1% of the total workers on a project with a minimum of five workers and a maximum of twenty workers, except in the case of the power and steel sector.
2. In the case of the power and steel sector, the maximum limit has been temporarily increased to forty workers till June 2010.
3. Visa applications falling within the above limits may be cleared by the Indian Missions abroad at their level, without being referred to the MLET, subject to satisfaction of the following conditions:
i. FNs are skilled and qualified professionals, technical experts, senior executives or in managerial positions, and
ii. The same skill sets are not available in India.
However, in such cases, the Indian Missions Abroad is required to send immediately the details of the EVs issued to the MLET in the prescribed format. This format requires the details of the project (viz. name and address of the project, total cost involved, total manpower requirement, and capacity of the plant) and details of the visa applicant (viz. name, date of birth, details of educational qualifications, technical and professional qualifications, skill set details, description of the job to be performed in India and prior on-the-job experience on similar assignments). This reporting will ensure that EVs are not granted to FNs who have skills which are already available in India and will help to keep track of the total number of FNs working on a specific project.
4. In the case of big projects where the number of highly skilled FNs exceeds the above ceiling, the applications should be referred to the MLET, India in a prescribed format, giving complete details of the project (viz. duration of the project, cost involved, industry sector involved, total manpower requirement), details of visa applications cleared by the Indian Missions Abroad, details of skills and technical qualifications of FNs, etc. along with justification for allowing the granting of visas to such FNs. Applications without the prescribed details will be rejected.
5. In order to reduce dependency on FNs, Indian companies:
i. Should train their Indian employees to enable them to run the projects commissioned by FNs in India;
ii. Can adopt any of the up gradation and modernization schemes launched by the Government of India close to their plant location and train their Indian workers in accordance with their requirements.
Note: This bulletin is designed for the information of readers. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, information contained in this bulletin may not be comprehensive or may not yet be passed into law. Recipients should not act upon it without seeking professional advice.
| "The Bottom Line"
The above guidelines intend to control the import of unskilled and semi skilled workforce into India and reduce the dependency on foreign nationals for running projects in India. A foreign national intending to come to India on an employment visa would be required to comply with these guidelines, which have come into force with immediate effect and have been communicated to the Indian Missions abroad for implementation. These Missions require a certificate to be provided by the Indian Company who is sponsoring the employment visa with regard to the number of foreign nationals working with the India Company in order to examine the adherence to these ceilings. These guidelines are mainly applicable to foreign nationals intending to come to India. Foreign nationals already working in India may not be affected by the same, except at the time of making an application for a visa extension. We expect further clarifications to be issued by MLET in this regard and we will keep you posted.
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