Several H-1B visa holders from Calcutta on Saturday scurried for air tickets back to the US after the Donald Trump administration set a Saturday midnight deadline for reshaping the visa programme.
Many of them said they had planned to return to the US, where they work, later this month or in October, after Durga Puja. Some of them had booked their return tickets.
On Saturday, they seemed desperate to reach the US by midnight Eastern Time (9.30am Sunday morning in India), although the task looked almost impossible and airfares had suddenly rocketed.
Flights from Calcutta to the US take between 18 and 22 hours, whether to the East or West Coast, operators said. There’s no direct flight and Singapore, Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi are the popular international transits.
The fares are seasonal. A round trip costs between ₹80,000 and ₹1 lakh, but can soar past ₹1.5 lakh when there is robust demand.
The Trump administration, which has raised H-1B visa fees to an annual $100,000 (about ₹88 lakh), says that existing visa holders who are currently abroad must return to the US before the change kicks in or pay the new fee to gain entry.
“I have received many requests to arrange for last-minute tickets. People are ready to pay through their nose to reach the US in time,” said Anil Punjabi, national committee member of the Travel Agents Federation of India.
A techie from Calcutta on Saturday paid ₹2 lakh for a one-way flight to Boston, more than three times the usual fare. He had meant to spend Durga Puja with his family here.
Another travel operator, who asked not to be named, said he had arranged for Saturday night tickets to New York and Pennsylvania.
“An engineer employed in the US had booked a round trip on Air India. The return journey was a fortnight away,” the operator said.
“He was forced to get on a plane on Saturday night. He will not get a refund for the return leg of the Air India ticket. In addition, he had to pay for the new ticket.”
A source in a tech services company that sends employees to the US said that while stricter curbs on the H-1B visa were not unexpected, such a steep escalation in the fee had surprised the industry.
He said the median salary of an Indian techie in the US was about ₹60 lakh, so why should the US employer spend ₹88 lakh to renew the employee’s H-1B visa annually?
Ambarish Dasgupta, senior partner at Intueri Consulting, an organisation that works in the field of emerging technologies, said the number of H-1B visas would definitely fall and affect multiple sectors.
“Unless (US) employers see that the employee will still be earning something substantially more than what is being spent on them (that is, giving a substantially higher return on the investment), they will be reluctant,” he said.
Organisations are now likely to prioritise employees with specialised skills, rather than seniority and experience, sources said.
Roopen Roy, founder and CEO of the management consulting firm, Sumantrana, struck a note of hope.
“Silicon Valley and its innovation engine critically depend on H-1B visa talent,” he said.
“The big tech CEOs will soon argue this case successfully with the Trump administration, and it is my personal view that a package trade deal will be concluded soon, and will include free and fair trade in services and cross-border movement of talent.”