Government mulling over Project Visas for Chinese workers: Sources - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Keeping in view the huge inflow and demand of skilled Chinese workers, the Indian government is deliberating on introducing a new project visa system. Sources here believe that under the proposed project visa regime visas to the Chinese workers will be allotted according to the projects per se. Officials here believe that the proposed visa will make it convenient for the authorities to monitor. No decision on the project visas is taken so far. Last year, the government tightened visa regulations to refuse extension to expats working on Indian projects under business visas. It mandated that all people working on projects should seek work visas that are difficult to obtain. India has tightened norms pertaining to Chinese workers, especially in the view that a lot of Unskilled Chinese workers have flooded Indian projects just by obtaining business visas and have taken jobs of India labourers which are equally skilled. Many stoppages are reported following the tightening of visas, the projects facing delays include Mundra thermal power project of Adani Power, Lanco group's Kondapalli extension-II , JSW Energy's Ratnagiri thermal power project, Sterlite Energy's Tirora project, Raj West Power's Jallipa-Kapurdi project, NPCL's Udupi project and NDPL's Rithala project. Together these power projects, scheduled for commissioning between 2010 and 2011, were slated to generate about 8000 mw of power. Governement wants to avoid such stoppages and believe that advent of project visas could help avoid delays in projects and will enable skilled Chinese workers to work here.