CANBERRA – In a major development, the authorities in Australia have restricted issuance of student visas to applicants hailing from six Indian states.
The reason for the unprecedented visa sanction is the increase in the number of deceptive applications from the six states. The affected states are Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Jammu & Kashmir.
The Australian authorities believe that applicants from these regions use their student visas as an immigration route to settle in the country.
Media reports imply that some of the universities in Australia have either stopped accepting applications from affected regions in India while other institutes have increased the scrutiny of applicants hailing from these regions.
To ensure that the student visas are being issued to the genuine applicants, the Australian universities are now collaborating with the Department of Home Affairs for scrutiny of the applicants.
Australia is not the first country to serve a blow to India as the United States is also deporting Indian students and visa holders in the ongoing immigration overhaul.
Interestingly, India sends a large majority of students to Australia every year and the fresh development has shocked the immigration experts and diplomatic circles.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs of India (MEA) commented on the development regarding the visa sanctions that visa matters are sovereign prerogatives of individual countries.
MEA’s Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that visa matters are sovereign matters and whether Australia wants to issue a visa to X or Y, it’s their prerogative.
The government of Australia has been tightening the rules regarding international students and recently the country’s opposition leader Peter Dutton introduced a major proposal aimed at cutting the number of international students in the country, pledging to reduce student intake by 80,000, to help ease the housing crisis.
With elections around the corner, it is highly likely that the incoming regime would overhaul the immigration policies and especially the international student visa policy.
