India's software services industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) said on Thursday that there was no official confirmation from the US on lowering of H-1B visa cap, and that it was awaiting further clarity on the matter.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the US was considering caps on its H-1B work visas for nations that force foreign companies to store data locally. H-1B visas, most commonly used by techies to travel to the US as part of client side work, have a cap of 65,000 visas for the general category under H-1B visas and allows a further 20,000 people who have a US master's degree from an accredited institution.

Reuters said, quoting senior Indian government officials, that they were told last week of a US government plan to cap H-1B visas issued each year to Indians at between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of the annual quota. Currently, there are no country-specific limits on H-1B visa allotment.

The $150-billion Indian technology services industry has for long been a beneficiary of the H-1B work visa programme.

The US in January announced a new H1B visa filing rule, effective April, under which priority would be given to foreign workers with advanced degrees from American universities.

Another rule change proposed in November last year effectively reversed the way H1B visas are counted, increasing the chances of advanced degree holders getting H-1B visas.

There has, however, not been any move to allot H-1B visas by geography.

"If US policy makes it more difficult to hire advanced tech workers, it will only weaken the US companies that depend on them to help fill their skills gaps, put jobs at risk, creating pressure to send technology services abroad. In April 2019, the number of unfilled jobs stood at 7.5 million. 67 per cent of these, or 2 in every 3 jobs, required specific technical skills. It is this very unmet technical requirement that skilled immigrants, including workers on H-1B visas, have helped meet in the US," Nasscom said in a statement.

While Indian IT firms have been accused of gaming the H-1B visa system, the industry has consistently denied the claim and has been engaging with the US government to fix and smoothen out any issues. Not just Indian IT firms, but US-based technology and other firms like Google, Facebook, IBM , Microsoft and others make use of H-1B visas.

"Indian nationals accounted for majority of all approved H-1Bs in FY 2017. This is a testimony to their skill-set. Only a small share of these Indian nationals are employed by Indian companies. The vast majority of them are sponsored by global and US multinationals. If such a move were to be implemented, it will imply an even further crunch for businesses to access the skilled workers they need – this is true for all businesses operating in the US; including both Indian as well as American and global firms," Nasscom said.