To get 20,000 supplementary H-1B visas to be allocated for foreign personnel with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills Microsoft is pushing for legislation in the US. Along with that, it wants the US Congress to reallocate 20,000 green cards for workers with these skills.

According to Microsoft’s proposal the company’s which use the H-1B visas from this supplementary pool should pay $10,000 for each employee who gets the visa, while green card approval will entail a fee of $15,000 on the company’s part. They believe this approach could raise up to $500 million per year – or $5 billion over a decade. They have suggested that the amount could be divided between states where STEM education is most needed.

US software giant Microsoft Corporation has also suggested a huge fee of $ 10,000 (over Rs 5 lakh) for a new category of H-1B visas and $ 15,000 (more than Rs 7.5 lakh) for permanent residency or Green Card.

Microsoft believes this initiative should include, among other things, funding for states to strengthen K-12 STEM education. This can be achieved by providing additional resources to recruit and train STEM teachers, broaden access to computer science in high school and expand higher education capacity to produce more STEM degrees.

If such a proposal is accepted by the Congress it would hit the Indian IT companies the most since Indian techies grab the maximum number of H-1B visas. Microsoft currently has an opening of 6,000 jobs in the country, of which more than 3,400 jobs are for researchers, developers and engineers. It could be a strategy to employ more of we US people and hence cut cost and save more!