India’s immigrant application meet setback as it crossing the limit of quota.

South Asians are hard hit by visa quotas and huge backlogs for immigrants, showed governments obtained from a freedom of information show. The target or the quotas are 9,245 visas per year for the New Delhi office. The backlog as of April 10 was 145,556, and even if no new application is taken, it would still take 16years to clear that. These numbers are for economic migrants who want permanent resident visas.

Richard Kurland, Vancouver lawyer, who got the numbers, said, that someone is not willing to say to people of India that they are hit hard.

The people who want to migrate will have to meet the instructions first and then have to go through the point system, explained Dannielle Norris, spokesperson of citizenship and immigration Canada. Suppose, if the instructions from Canada are that it needs 1000welders and 5000engineers, then this would be the first criteria, if no one in New Delhi is any one of these, none of the application will pass to the next stage. And in that case the backlog will not grow. There will be no waiting then, only yes or no.

He said that the immigrants, Canada needs is increasing at a rapid pace and they have to put their life on hold for five to six years.

The Islamabad and the London visa offices are no better. The backlog of Islamabad is 42998, and a quota of 3600. Many applying in London are south Asians in the United Kingdom or the Persian Gulf, said Kurland. In New Delhi, those three account for 41percent of the backlog.

Immigration Minister Diane Finley made useful changes in the immigration act to deal with the backlog.

Norris said that the quotas are set every November to bring people in Canada based on whom they require and not who requires them.