Indian tech professionals to benefit from increased H1B visas in USA

Us immigration has decided to allocate 65,000 new H1 B visas by lottery instead of quota systm traditionally followed ,as demand far outstrips supply.A majority of them is again expected to be be cornered by Indian high-tech professionals, according to immigration attorneys.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is expected to pick the lottery within a week, but the anxious wait for the applicants may continue for months as the department starts returning unsuccessful applications and sends receipts for the others. Those who get the three-year visa for skilled professionals can start work from october.While there were about 124,000 applications last year, the number this year may cross 150,000 . Many will also be vying for the 20,000 H-1B visas meant for foreigners with US-earned masters' or higher degrees. Since out 60-70 percent of all applications are expected to be on behalf of Indians they are sure to benefit from the proposed lottery system.Morever this flow is unaffected by the recent downturn in the US economy or improved economic opportunities in India.
There is an increasing need in the US to crying need to raise the H-1B cap as American businesses will benefit from hiring foreign highly skilled workers. A new bill has been already introduced in the Congress aiming to raise the cap to 195,000, and another bill seeks to boost the cap as well as exempt foreigners educated at US institutions from the quota. But no progress is expected before the next president takes over in early 2009. Earlier s there has been criticism over H1B v snatching away local technological jobs as it provides cheap labour but a recent study by the National Foundation for American Policy that found that on an average every foreign national on an one H1B visa generates another five to 7.5 jobs.
Indian outsourcing companies have also attracted criticism recently when the federal government released data showing that they accounted for nearly 80 percent of the visa petitions approved last year for the top 10 participants in the H1B programme.Currently Infosys had 4,559 and Wipro 2,567 approved visa petitions in the programme, which was initially set up to allow companies in the US to import the best and brightest in technology, engineering, and other fields when such workers are in short supply in America