New Delhi, Jan 31 (KNN) In a major setback for the IT firms, a legislation has been introduced in the US House of Representatives which among other things calls for more than doubling the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders.

The Bill calls to increase the minimum wage to USD 130,000, making it expensive for the firms to use the programme to replace American employees with foreign workers, including from India.

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H).

It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations.

According to ComputerWorld magazine, nearly 86 per cent of H1-B visas for computer-related jobs and 46.5 per cent for engineering positions were given to Indians.

The US issues 85,000 H1-B visas every year, of which 20,000 are for master's degree holders from US universities. Because of the large number of applicants - 236,000 in 2016 - the H1-B visas were issued through a lottery system.

According to a media report, the High-Skilled Integrity and Fairness Act of 2017 introduced by California Congressman Zoe Lofgren prioritises market based allocation of visas to those companies willing to pay 200 per cent of a wage calculated by survey, eliminates the category of lowest pay, and raises the salary level at which H-1B dependent employer are exempt from non-displacement and recruitment attestation requirements to greater than USD 130,000.

This is more than double of the current H-1B minimum wage of USD 60,000 which was established in 1989 and since then has remained unchanged.