Bullish on increased outsourcing by the American information technology firms from India, the domestic software firms view as "positive" or of "little impact" last week's decision by the United States to reduce H-1B visa issued to workers in technology industry to 65,000 from 195,000.

"It does not make a difference for firms whose business model has people largely working offshore," Pawan Kumar, chairman, vMoksha Technologies Pvt Ltd, told PTI in Bangalore on Wednesday.

The cap for H-1B visas which was at 65,000 per year till 1999, went up to 115,000 in 2000 during the technology boom period and subsequently to 195,000 for a period of three years. But with the cut in tech spending, only about 80,000 of the 195,000 visas were used last year by technology workers.

With pressure to cut IT costs and improve efficiency, global firms have increased their focus on outsourcing their software development and maintenance to low cost countries, with India emerging as the "hotspot" with proven expertise in providing quality work at competitive prices.

Asserting that H-1B visas are largely used by firms onsite and with the trend now focused on outsourcing, Kumar said, "It is a good and positive sign, which will make firms drive business where the technology workers are."

"All the hiring is offshore driven and there are very few people who are being hired for onsite work. In fact lot of techies are coming back to India. This move does not have any impact," head of HR consultancy firm TVA Infotech, Gautam Sinha, said.

India's software body National Association of Software and Service Companies views "little impact" as the mix of onsite-offshore business has undergone a change with offshoring already accounting for more than half of the total software and service exports.

"A reduction to 65,000 will have at most a marginal impact on the total revenue of business deals and it is business as usual for the Indian IT companies," Kiran Karnik, president, Nasscom, told PTI in New Delhi last week.

The Indian software exports stood at $9.6 billion in 2002-03 and a conservative growth of 26 per cent is projected for this fiscal.

Industry officials said the real threat would be on the L-1 visa, which allows companies to transfer workers on official work from a foreign office to the US organisation.

"More than the H-1B visa, the L-1 visas are more flexible and employees cannot leave organisations. Any change in that may have an impact," Joseph Louis, chief of human resources, Kshema Technologies, said.

Industry officials were unanimous that a rebound in US technology spend would make American industry to force their government to repeal the cut and attract foreign workers or "outsource for their benefit".

Karnik said the US should not put a cap on visas and should allow market forces to decide and cited that only about 80,000 visas were issued of the 195,000 last year.