The 'Tatkaal' visa: Know what is premium processing of H-1B work visas

NEW DELHI: The US has resumed fast processing of H-1B work visas in all categories five months after it was suspended temporarily to handle the huge rush of applications for the work visas popular among Indian IT professionals.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year.

Below is all you need to know about premium processing and what it means for Indian companies:

1. Premium processing is akin to 'tatkaal' scheme for H-1B visas: A decision is made on each application within 15 calendar days for a fee of $1,225 under this programme. In the normal course, an application usually takes between three to six months for processing.

2. If the 15-calendar-day processing time is not met, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services ( USCIS) refunds the petitioner's premium processing service fee and continues with expedited processing of the application.

3. The service is only available for pending petitions, not new submissions, since USCIS received enough petitions in April to meet the FY 2018 cap.

4. In April, while susupending the premium processing, USCIS said the suspension might last up to six months and would help it process long-pending petitions that it was then unable to process due to high volume of incoming petitions and the significant surge in premium processing requests over the past few years.

5. Premium processing helps Indian IT companies when H-1B visas are needed quickly due to urgent business requirments, which happens quite often.

6. The move was expected to slow down onsite deployment of skilled professionals from India. Indian companies had to better plan onsite staffing of critical resources, as the move meant longer waiting time for employees to be deployed at client locations.

At present, the US has a cap of 65,000 visas for the general category under H-1B visas and allows a further 20,000 people who have a US master's degree from an accredited institution to also apply. The USCIS uses a computer-generated process, also known as the lottery, to randomly select the petitions.