Will raise H-1B, L1 visa fee hike issue with US

Hyderabad: The Centre will continue to take up the issue of hike in visa fees for Indian software professionals working in the US at the highest level with the US administration, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said here on Sunday.
“As far as (issue of) H-1B and L1 visa fee hike is concerned, we have taken it up with the highest level with the US government. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to US President, I have also taken it up and we will continue doing so,” Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters here. He was speaking on the sidelines of the annual Heads of Circles Conference organised by the Department of Posts. “I can only say one thing, Indian companies pay tonnes of money in tax to the US companies. Our companies are giving good IT value addition to Fortune 500 companies of the US. It is a very reciprocal commitment which we are giving,” he said.
Prasad said domestic IT companies were present in 200 cities across 80 countries and that India today occupied 56 per cent of the world outsourcing hub. “It is because of the talent, human resource of Indian IT products and companies including from Hyderabad,” he said.
The Minister announced that the Department of Posts would provide 1.30 lakh network-connected hand-held devices to postmen working in rural areas to carry out postal transactions by next year. “By next March we will be giving hand-held devices to all the postmen in rural areas of the country which they will use to carry out transactions of banking, insurance and mail services. “On a pilot-basis, 4,000 hand-held devices have been given to postmen in six states to see their functioning,” he said.
On state-run BSNL, Prasad said, “When Vajpayee government left office in 2004, BSNL was in profit of Rs 10,000 crore, however, when Manmohan Singh government left office in 2014, BSNL was in a loss of Rs 8,000 crore.”
He claimed that in the last 20 months of NDA rule, the BSNL had come to operative profit of Rs 672 crore for first time in seven years. Responding to a query, Prasad said all manufacturers of mobile phones in the country would have to provide a “panic button” aimed at improving the safety of women from January 2017 and from January 2018 every mobile phone must have a GPS location.
“These two unique initiatives of India by the Ministry of Communication are designed to ensure women safety through technology which is generating a lot of excitement world over,” he said. On core banking solutions (CBS) at post offices, the Minister said, “In May 2014 there are just 230 CBS-enabled branches and now in May 2016 there were 21,664 that is the speed we work with.”