Firm to pay $2.4m to underpaid workers

Patni Computer Systems Ltd., an Indian outsourcing firm with its US headquarters in Cambridge, has agreed to pay more than $2.4 million after federal investigators found it underpaid hundreds of employees hired under a controversial visa program for highly skilled foreign workers.

The US Department of Labor said Patni hired 607 employees to do computer work in 32 states in 2004 and 2005, but they were not paid prevailing local wage rates, as required under the H-1B visa program.

Patni will pay the workers more than $2.4 million under an administrative settlement, said a spokesman for the department.

The company, headquartered in Mumbai, was started by Narendra K. Patni, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate who conceived one of the earliest ‘‘offshore’’ business models with his wife, Poonam, in the early 1970s.

A spokesman said the company has contacted the employees due to receive money. He said the wage violation was due to an accounting error but declined to elaborate.

The visa program permits US companies to temporarily hire foreigners in professional occupations and is heavily used in high-technology industries. Employers are required to offer prevailing wages to avoid undercutting US workers’ pay.

Patni is one of several Indian firms operating large technology services centers in the United States to handle jobs outsourced from US companies. Patni provides information technology consulting, software development, and other business services.
(AP, Globe staff)