(This story originally appeared in on Apr 9, 2016)

NEW DELHI: The country's top software services industry body has said the reports of Indian IT industry being the largest applicant of US skilled worker visas only shows that there is not enough supply of talent for the kind of demand in the US. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had on Thursday said it received more than the limit of 20,000 H-1B visa petitions for financial year 2017. The visa application process began on April 1. Some reports suggested that the number of H-1B visa applications had touched 250,000.“We have no information directly on that number (of H-1B visa applications),“ said R Chandrashekhar, president of National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).“We know that the number of H-1B visas that are issued are significantly less than the number that are actually required. And that's the reason why there has been number of attempts in the past to enhance that number keeping in mind the situation,“ he said.The IT services industry is a huge beneficiary of the H-1B visa programme and has faced flak for allegedly abusing the visa process. The industry has maintained that it does not do so and that the nature of work requires these work visas for transfer of skilled labour across borders. With the US heading towards presidential elections this year, the issue of H-1B visa misuse has been gathering steam in the country.Experts say India should consider alternatives. “The filling up of the quota for H-1B visas within the first few days indicates how restrictive the quota is in what is supposedly to be the most free market economy in the world,“ said Sanjoy Sen, a doctoral research scholar at Aston Business School, UK.“Indian IT providers must therefore continue to pursue alternative delivery models that increase the offshore component, involve robotics and deliver through acquired overseas companies, all of which they are already focused upon,“ Sen said.The visa issue has been in the news this week after Infosys cofounder N R Narayana Murthy accused Indian IT companies of acting as “immigration agents“ for employees -a remark that most in the industry distanced themselves from.Chandrashekhar too disagreed with Murthy. “That point of view is one which the industry does not subscribe to and does not share,“ he said.