H-1B visa constraints: India reaches out to Trump administration to bay concerns

India has stepped up its lobbying effort against moves in the US Congress to impose curbs on visas for skilled workers that threaten the South Asian nation's tech sector which employs more than 3.5 million people, a news agency said. 

According to a report in Reuters, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that New Delhi recently reached out to the administration of President Donald Trump to stress the importance of India's $150-billion IT services industry to the US citizens.

"India's investments in the United States have provided jobs to US citizens," she said in an interview. "That has to be brought to the notice of the US administration."

The comments come days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Washington to keep an open mind on admitting skilled Indian workers.

Indian software companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Ltd and Wipro Ltd shot to prominence in the 1990s by helping Western firms stamp out the "Y2K" bug.