Narayana Murthy: Indian IT companies act as immigration agents

HYDERABAD: US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump now has an ally in India in the form of N R Narayana Murthy. Trump, who has been vehemently opposing outsourcing of US jobs to countries like India and China, among others, has found support from Infosys founder Murthy, who on Tuesday said that the Indian software industry has been acting as ‘immigration agents' for its employees. He said it was imperative for the IT companies to create local jobs as it was their responsibility to do so.

“My belief was that a corporation that has global aspiration has to be fair to its global employees. All Indian companies guarantee visas, they guarantee green cards. The whole exercise has become as if they are immigration agents. I am sorry to say that. Indian companies behave as if they are agents for their employees to cross the Atlantic,” Murthy said at the Indian School of Business (ISB), where he was conferred the ISB Honorary Distinguished Fellowship.

The debate on outsourcing has raised concerns among industry leaders and economists in India as a massive chunk of Indian exports comes from the export of IT services to the North American market.

“My concern is that Donald Trump, in last debate, said that H1B, whatever it is, I use it but I don't like it. I want to scrap all H1Bs. That's very worrying for export-led growth going forward,” chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian had recently said at the Advancing Asia Conference co-hosted by India and IMF.

Meanwhile, Murthy, who is known for his simple living, said the rich and the powerful in the country must exercise self-restraint in allocating power and richness to themselves.

“In India, capitalism is at a very nascent stage. Therefore you (the students) have to be evangelist. You have to lead simple lives. We need compassionate capitalism which is about treating every employee with respect and dignity,” he added.


Last month, the Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has said that the H-1B visa programme he uses to employ highly-skilled foreign workers at his own businesses should end as it is "very unfair" for American workers and has been taking away their jobs.

IT professionals from India and major Indian IT companies are major beneficiary of H-1B, a non-immigrant visa in the US which allows US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in speciality occupations.