Guardian Weekly May 25-31 2000

German visa offer fails to tempt India's IT experts

Luke Harding in New Delhi

Germany's attempt to overcome its crisis in information technology by hiring thousands of Indian software professional has so far proved an embarrassing failure, with fewer than 200 Indians expressing any interest in a visa scheme proposed by Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.

India's burgeoning computer software industry has responded with stunning indifference to the plan which would allow 20,000 foreign software experts to come to Germany on five-year visas

"I don't want to go to Germany. I would much rather go to the US," Kamaalika Sen, a computer specialist with the German firm Siemens said last weekend, summed up the mood.

Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, was startled to find last week that the chief minister of Karnataka, India's most hi-test state, was too busy to meet him.

During his trip to Bangalore Mr. Fischer called on Azim Premji, the head of the Indian software giant Wipro and the subcontinent's richest man. Mr. Premji apparently told him that the green card scheme was bureaucratic and unworkable.

Chancellor Schroder's plan to recruit from India and eastern Europe was prompted by the fact that Germany's information and telecommunications industry is growing by between 30,000-40,000 jobs a year - and has a a shortfall of 75,000 people. But the green card scheme has sparked intense political debate within Germany, much of it verging on the racist.

Jurgen Ruttgers, a Christian Democrat politician in North Rhine-Westphalia, coined the election slogan Kinder statt Inder - children not Indians - meaning that German children should be trained to fill IT vacancies. The row appears to have put off the few Indian software professionals who had been considering a move to Germany.

"It is a very major deterrent," added Ms Sen, who lived in Munich for two years. She said that the scheme did not tempt her because it made not provision for her husband to join her.

Indian IT experts have deluged the paper with explanations of why Germany fails to compete with the US: salaries are much lower, the visa is limited to five years, immigration is practically impossible, and families are not encouraged to come.

"Xenophobia is on the increase in Germany because of the economic downturn," said Anand Mahindra, who runs his own IT business in Delhi. "Why should I go to Germany and pay 50% tax when I can go to the US and pay 35% and earn twice the salary?"