Ranchi:

The Jharkhand government on Sunday said 11 of the 47 workers stranded in Cameroon in central Africa were brought to the state and efforts were underway for the safe return of the remaining labourers.

The development comes after the state government filed FIRs against a Mumbai-based firm and some middlemen for alleged non-payment of wages to 47 workers from the state, who were stuck in the African country.

“Eleven out of 47 migrant workers from Jharkhand, stranded in Cameroon, were brought to the state as per instructions from Chief Minister Hemant Soren. All the workers were sent to their homes by the Labour Department. The return of the remaining 36 workers is also being ensured,” a statement from the chief minister’s secretariat said.

Earlier this month, the labour commissioner had filed the FIRs at Hazaribag, Bokaro and Giridih police stations against middlemen and employers following a direction from Soren who had received complaints that these workers did not receive their wages for three months.

After the government took action, the process to make payment of wages to the workers was initiated, the statement said.

“The control room team has been continuously contacting the officials, the company and workers through email and phone, and the total outstanding amount of Rs 39.77 lakh has been paid to the workers,” the statement said.

It alleged that the employers and middlemen sent these workers to Cameroon without registering them under the Inter-State Migrant Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979, and without obtaining the required licence.

The workers drew the attention of the CM for non-payment of their wages for three months, following which the State Migrant Control Room contacted the workers and the employers.

The state government has sought the contract and wage details of the workers, besides other documents.

Efforts were being made to ensure the safe return of workers and the Ministry of External Affairs has been informed about it, the statement added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Among the Indians whose wage rate exceeded $1 million per year, over 25% were women.

In the last four years, more than 78% of the top paid H-1B applicants (whose proposed wage rate exceeded $1 million per year) were from India. Among the Indians whose wage rate exceeded $1 million per year, over 25% were women. Also, over 65% of these high-paid H-1B applicants from India were sponsored by relatively smaller companies in the U.S.

Moreover, the salary range of H-1B applicants whose sponsors were U.S.-based companies was in general higher than the salary range of H-1B applicants whose sponsors were India-based companies. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

These conclusions are based on data obtained by Bloomberg from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Each April, the USCIS conducts a random lottery to determine which H-1B applicants can proceed to submit visa petitions. Candidates may have multiple registrations submitted by different employers. Once selected, an employer can file an H-1B petition on behalf of the beneficiary.

These petitions include details about the proposed job, such as salary and location, and form the basis of the conclusions presented in the story. Only about 1 lakh approved H-1B petitions, filed in the 2021-2024 period, for which all relevant data were available, were taken for the analysis.

While an approved H-1B petition is necessary for obtaining an H-1B visa, it does not guarantee one. After receiving approval from the USCIS, applicants may either apply for an H-1B visa at a U.S. consulate abroad or seek an Adjustment of Status with the USCIS if they are already in the U.S.

Chart 1 shows the proposed yearly wage rate in $ (vertical axis) against the number of workers employed by the sponsor in the U.S. (horizontal axis). Each circle corresponds to an applicant whose application got selected in the lottery and whose H-1B petition was approved. The higher the circle, the higher the proposed salary. The farther to the right, the bigger the company size of the sponsor. Indian applicants are highlighted in a different colour.

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Of the 1 lakh H-1B applications, only 123 had a proposed salary of $1 million and above per year. Of them, 96 (78%) were from India. Over 90% of the proposed salaries were in and around the $1,00,000 range.

Chart 2 shows the same information, but only for Indians. Here, female and male applicants are differentiated using colours. Of the 96 applicants from India identified in Chart 1, 25 (26%) were women.