Australian visas still attractive to Indian students

June 15 2009 by Ranjan Chakraborty

According to an immigration consultancy based in India and Australia, the recent spate of attacks on Indian students studying in Australia has in no way impacted the number of people from India applying for an Australian visa.

Naresh Gulati, the CEO of Oceanic Consultants, which helps some 3,000 Indian students secure Australia visas, says it has seen no fall in applications from Punjabi students.

Gulati says Australia is a safe place for Indian students, "Australia is the most conducive, friendly and non-racist place that really encourages students to settle there. My whole family is living there and we have not faced any kind of racial attack or discrimination so far."

GlobalVisas.co.in can also say that the attacks have had very little impact on visa applications. Ritesh Saraf, manager of Global Visas New Delhi office says, "Such incidents cannot deter our Punjabi students from going there. Every day we are getting inquiries from students and their parents."

At the moment, some 93,000 students from India are living in Australia on student visas. Some 40% of these are from the Punjab region.

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