About 4,000 megawatts of power projects being built in India by Chinese companies may face delays due to non-availability of engineers from these companies, the junior power minister said Monday."These projects are in advanced stages of commissioning and urgently required the services of Chinese engineers for the commissioning activities," Bharatsinh Solanki told the upper house of parliament in a written reply.India asked Chinese engineers to leave the country by Oct. 31 after it found that Chinese nationals with a business visa, which doesn't permit citizens of other countries to work in India, were taking employment here.India in July had decided that business visas will be issued only to businessmen and that business visa holders currently employed in India will have to apply again for employment visas in order to return for project related work."The Ministry of Power has, therefore, requested the Ministry of Home Affairs to expedite issuing of employment visas to Chinese engineers so that plants can be completed on time," Mr. Solanki said.India issued 38,924 business visas to Chinese nationals up to October this calendar year. In 2008, business visas were issued to 58,658 Chinese nationals (Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2009).
No comments:
Post a Comment