H1B Visa Processing in India :: Must know Facts and FAQs!!

Who are Eligible?

On a broader scale, any Indian citizen who has 16 years of continuous education from a recognized (not all institution are recognized by US consulates) educational institute will qualify for H1b if he has relevant adequate experience of at least 2-3 Years with a registered IT Development company and he who doesn`t have any legal problem are eligible. Please note eligibility doesn’t guarantee VISA, it is to the discretion of the consulate officer who are not to grant a VISA.

The sought after technologies are

• Java, J2EE Technologies with UML/XML, SQL/Oracle
• VB.Net, ASP.Net, C#, .Net
• C,C++
• Data Base Administrators (DBA’s)
• Testing Tools
• Data Base Developers
• SAP, Oracle Apps
• SAS, Cognos, Informatica and other ETL Tools
• VLSI
• Vignette
• Plumtree
• MS Visual Studio
• Cold Fusion
• Symantec Visual Café
• IBM Visual Age
• JMS/JBuilder

How is the Case picked Up?
U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has no outlined strategy to pick up the candidates while processing their H1b Petitions. Cases are picked up on a random basis. To increase your chances of getting picked up apply from different companies.

What if the case is not picked up?
Even before you send the packet/candidature to USCIS, every cases has to be evaluated by an attorney and also have his/her education evaluation done. In spite of all this efforts, it is quite likely (70:30) that few of the candidates are not even picked up for processing.

What is the quota allotted to Indians for US H1b`s?
This keeps varying years after year and can increase/decrease as per the market situation prevailing in USA. For now India has around 65,000 VISA that can be granted to qualified Indian citizens.

What is the latest date for H1b petition submittal?
All H1b`s should reach the USCIS centers by 1st April every year, However there is lot of paper work and evaluation to be done on each case before they can be sent to USCIS. Bottom line sooner the better. But the last date would be 1st April.

If filed for H1b when can I go to USA?
Filing of H1b petition doesn`t guarantee your VISA.. once the H1b petition is filed, the USCIS processes the cases and will release the 797 form (Which is the basic document to be possessed by any one to appear for a H1b interview with their respective regional US Consulate... for south India it is Chennai) If granted a VISA at the consulate you can fly to USA anytime.

What if my VISA is rejected?
As said before, granting of H1b VISAS are purely to the discretion of the consulate officer who will conclude after looking in to your educational/experience certificates and their own quantifying parameters.

Hope this info helped in clearing some of the doubts related to H1b Visa processing.