London, June 16 (IANS) India is among five countries where there has been a huge increase in the number of student visas issued by Britain during 2004-05, according to official figures.

The five countries are India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey and Ghana. The number of visas across the five countries soared from 17,723 in the year 2000 to just over 40,000 in 2004-05, according to Kim Howells, Foreign Office minister.

In response to parliamentary questions from Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP, Howells stated that Nigeria showed one of the largest rises - from 1,516 in 2000 to 8,045 in 2004-05.

Student visa numbers for Pakistan rose from 2,421 to 10,859.

In India, the figure last year was 15,283, up from 4,790.

Student visas for Turkey fell during the five-year period from 7,208 to 4,234, while Ghana's remained relatively stable at a little over 1,700.

Carswell, a member of the Commons education committee, raised fears of "an immigration scam", claiming that the growth in student visas coincided with a decline in asylum-seeker numbers.

Responding to Carswell, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne admitted that Britain did not have accurate estimates of the number of students who returned to their country of origin after their courses were over.