NEW DELHI: A study that fuelled a debate in the US on the merits of H1-B visa has found that Indians working there temporarily get nearly 13,000 dollars a year less than their American counterparts.

The December 2005 findings by Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), on whose basis two US Senators wrote to nine Indian companies asking for details of how 20,000 H1-B visas were used, reveal that such visa holders were being paid an average salary of USD 52,312 as against USD 65,003 to locals.

The findings are part of the report prepared by software industry expert John Miano for CIS, an independent non-profit organization. The report noted that H1-B is often misused by employers to import cheaper labor -- apparently the key argument of US lawmakers Charles Grassley (Republican) and Richard Durbin (Democrat) for restricting the number of such visas.

The H1-B visa cap had already been reduced from 1,95,000 to 65,000 two years ago. The two senators wrote to, among others, Infosys, TCS and Wipro and the episode kicked up a storm back home, where IT industry and even government officials reacted angrily. Industry body Nasscom asked the senators not to confuse the H1-B visa with immigration, saying the program was more to do with international trade.