NEW DELHI - THOUSANDS of foreign workers in India face a deadline on Saturday to be out of the country in a visa clampdown aimed at cracking down on tax-dodging expats and unskilled labour.

The changes will affect expatriates working in India on a business visa, which under the new rules will be reserved for a smaller pool of senior executives, trade consultants and other specialists.

Those who fail to meet the government's new criteria for the business visa will have to leave India by Saturday midnight and can return to the country to work only if they meet the stricter criteria for a full employment visa.

'If a foreign national is employed in India, he must have the right kind of visa,' Home Secretary G.K. Pillai said in New Delhi this week.

The number of expatriates affected by the change was not known, but experts said they expected thousands to be caught in the net. -- AFP