No need to go overboard over H1-B visa issues, says incumbent Tata Sons Chairman

N Chandrasekaran, the former TCS CEO and incumbent Tata Sons Chairman, said that people were going overboard over apprehensions regarding the H1-B visa and urged the Indian IT industry to take it easy as exciting times lay ahead and opportunities would be abounding. He said this while addressing the annual Nasscom conference in Mumbai on 15 February.

The Press Trust of India quotes Chandrasekharan as saying that every time a regulatory change was on the anvil or any threat was being perceived in the IT industry, people tend to see a problem.  He believes that issues like H1-B or increase in re-staffing get overblown.

According to him, great opportunities await the IT industry going forward owing to the ever expanding demand for technology. Chandrasekharan said that as technology would drive all businesses, the opportunity and the demand would only be increasing rapidly.

Saying that change was something we need to always put up with, he cautioned people against getting too paranoid. He added that the IT sector will have to embrace changes, forge new partnerships, create capabilities, retrain employees and build intellectual property.

His comments came against the backdrop of increasing concerns in this sector after the United States is making a move to impose stricter rules against immigration through H1B visas.

Chandrasekaran also asked people not to denigrate domestic IT services firms. He said in the future an Indian company too would be able to come up with a popular product like Windows or Apple and took the opportunity to exhort the industry by affording such opportunities to entrepreneurs.

Coming to the issues raised above, there are many countries other than the US which adopted liberal policies to welcome talented tech workers. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and many more countries are facing a shortage of skilled IT workers.

If you are planning to migrate abroad, contact Y-Axis, a premier immigration consultancy firm of India, to know which countries you could relocate to depending on the skills that you have. It has several offices which operate out of the largest cities in the country.