Silicon Valley cannot do without Indians? At least Veritas CEO thinks so

It seems the US government’s imposition of additional fee of up to USD 4,500 for certain categories of H-1B visa for Indians is not going well with many at the Silicon Valley.

Veritas CEO Bill Coleman called for dramatic expansion of the H-1B visa scheme -popular among Indian tech firms.

The H1B visa allows US employers to recruit foreign professionals in speciality occupations within the US. However, the Indian IT industry was affected after the US imposed an additional fee.

Amid this, Coleman said there was a huge crunch of quality IT professionals.

"The entire Silicon Valley believes that the H-1B visa policy needs to be dramatically expanded. We can't hire enough good people. They are just not available here. The salaries here are going through the roof, because everybody is competing to hire from everybody else," said Coleman, who is also a former chairman of Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Soon headed to India, where Veritas has about 1,700 people working for it with Pune being a major centre, Coleman said he plans to migrate some of his facilities to India from Florida.

"That is a priority," he said.

"In Silicon Valley you go to Apple, Facebook or Google, open their websites, you will find thousands of open jobs. One of the biggest problem here is that everybody is trying to hire from everybody else. As they can't find enough good candidates what they are doing is pushing the salaries through the moon," he said.

Coleman said the number of H-1B visas should be based on market demand and the programme's expansion is one of the top priorities for the Silicon Valley.

Coleman said India, now the fastest-growing emerging economies of the world, offers a "great" and "long term" opportunities for IT firms and he aims to make the best of it.

"We are targeting growth in excess of 40 per cent in our sales in India," he said.

Coleman said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has brought "a breadth of fresh air."

"It is not that difficult to do business in India...the regulations have gotten better, but they are not up to the leading free market standards yet. Things are improving under Modi and we are happy about that," he said.

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