Wipro may pass the rise in costs from visa fees to clients
Press Trust of India / New Delhi Sep 07, 2010, 16:44 IST
The country's third largest software exporter Wipro today said it may increase the billing rates of clients to mitigate the extra cost arising due to the hike in Visa fee by the US government.
"We will speak to our customers and seek price adjustments for the extra cost...We will work with them to see how to mitigate it (cost due to increased Visa fee)," Wipro CFO Suresh Senapaty told reporters at the sidelines of a CII event.
Senapaty added that the US Border Security Bill, which lead to a hike in visa fees, will have moderate impact in the current fiscal on the IT firm.
However, he warned that "next year there will be impact."
Notwithstanding the increased cost, he said that Wipro will continue to invest in the US.
"Our medium and long-term plan is to have more and more local hiring. So at some stage we should be able to mitigate the high Visa cost," he said.
The Indian IT industry had slammed the US government's proposal to sharply increase visa fee to raise funds for its border security needs.
The Border Security Bill, increased the Visa fee to be about $4,500 per visa from $2,500 currently.
The Bill aims to raise about $600 million by increasing fee for H-1B and L-1 visas.
Earlier, IT industry body Nasscom had projected that the impact of the Border Security Bill on Indian IT firms could be as high as $200-250 million per year.
Several Indian IT firms avail H-1B and L-1 visas in thousands every year to fly their software engineers to the US for working at their clients' locations as on-site techies.
Shares of Wipro were trading at Rs 404.55, down by 0.02 per cent at the BSE.
Content Guide
The country's third largest software exporter Wipro today said it may increase the billing rates of clients to mitigate the extra cost arising due to the hike in Visa fee by the US government.
