Updated: June 15, 2018 8:32 AM IST
Mumbai, June 15: Among the Indian diaspora, Canada is one favourite destination, suggests a media report. A big reason for the same would be Canada’s Express Entry programme which invites top-ranked candidates — under the country’s point-based immigration system — to take up permanent residency, says a report in The Times of India. Express Entry is the country’s flagship programme for such economic migration.
Under the Express Entry scheme, out of the 86,022 invitations that the country got in 2017, nearly 42% (or 36,310) were to those with Indian citizenship. Even the total number of invitations sent in 2017 was more than double that of the previous year. In 2016, the number of invites sent to those with Indian citizenship in Canada was merely 11,037, showing an increase of over 200% a year later. The report quotes from the Express Entry Year-end Report, 2017, issued recently by the Canadian government’s immigration division, that a little over one lakh applications were received for permanent residency in 2017, and 65,401 permanent residents were admitted into Canada. As many as 26,000-plus Indians became permanent residents in Canada; that is a huge 40% of the number.
Among those who had job offers and were admitted as permanent residents, professions like information system analysts, software engineers and designers, computer programmers and university lecturers topped the charts.
Another reason for the spurt in this movement to Canada could be, says the report, the long wait for a green card in the US. The green card grants permanent residency but H-1B visa holders, tired of the wait, are heading towards the neighbouring country, the statistics suggest. As of now, over three lakh Indians in the US are waiting for a green card. Washington-based think tank CATO Institute says that given the green card backlog, the waiting period for Indians with an advanced degree could be as much as 151 years.
Meanwhile, ANI said Canada has made some changes to the student visa programme as well. As of June 8, the existing Student Partnership Program (SPP) in India will be replaced with the Student Direct Stream (SDS). This new SDS programme will replace existing facilitation programs for students not only in India but also in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The existing SPP in India is restricted to international students intending to study at one of approximately 40 post-secondary institutions in Canada. The new SDS will be open to all international students going to any Designated Learning Institution (DLI) in Canada, including both publicly-funded and private post-secondary institutions.
