Union Railways Minister urges ICAI to align immensely with national priority schemes
Bangalore, January 30, 2015: The 3-day international conference organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) was inaugurated on Jan 29 at Bangalore. The conference, “Accountancy Profession: Building Global Competitiveness; Accelerating Growth”, is a part of ICAI’s effort to ensure continuous professional development of its members.
Speaking at the inauguration event, Mr Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Railways and Guest of Honour at the conference, said that the ICAI should “align immensely with the national priority schemes such as Make In India, Swachh Bharat Mission and Jan Dhan Yojana. The ICAI and members should strive to accelerate growth and create jobs in this country”. He also appealed to the CAs present at the conference and the ICAI to adopt railway stations and help the Indian Railways to keep them neat and clean.
Other dignitaries present at the event included CA. K. Rahman Khan, MP and former Union Minister, ICAI President CA K. Raghu, ICAI Vice-President CA Manoj Fadnis, ICAI Acting Secretary CA V. Sagar, SIRC Chairman CA P.V. Rajarameshwaran, and SIRC Bangalore branch Chairman CA Babu Tewar.
Addressing the gathering, CA K. Rahman Khan said that the Accountancy profession is the most respected profession in the world. “Being a 66 year-old institution, the ICAI with more than 235,000 members and 832,000 students, has played a crucial role in the economic development of our country. Now, it has to play a bigger role in reforming the government accounting, managing the losses of PSUs and investing in financial research,” he added.
Delivering a thought-provoking address, CA Mohandas Pai, Padma Shri Awardee, urged the country’s accounting professionals to increase global competitiveness. “India must adopt the global best practices in accounting, bring its regulations at par with the global standards, and provide chartered accountants professionals such environment wherein they can provide services across the countries with ease,” he said. He also stressed the need to increase competition from the Indian CA firms to the global counterparts.
CA K. Raghu, President, ICAI, welcoming the participants said at the event “ ICAI is the second largest accounting body and accountancy at present is the most popular profession in the world, and to top it all, there are plenty of job opportunities and prospects for the youth and professionals who aspire to pursue and join the profession”.
He added “The Chartered Accountants’ course is highly cost-effective in nature as compared to other professional courses and this fact has helped the students from even very humble background to join the accountancy profession”.
As part of the continuous professional development of the members, the ICAI is organizing the 3-day International Conference on “Accountancy Profession: Building Global Competitiveness; Accelerating Growth” starting January 29 at Bangalore.
About the Conference
Given the stature of the event and the range of topics to be deliberated, the Conference provides a unique opportunity to access the emergence of new thought process on contemporary issues and professionally upgrade oneself. The conference brings together national and international perspective on issues of contemporary relevance to accountancy profession. Some of these issues include Essence of Reporting – Governance and Sustainability, Managing Change: Regulation and Developmental Context, Management & Leadership: Frontiers of Growth, Professional Avenues for Future Growth, Confluence – Profession & Society, Professional Panorama, Financial Services Sector – Agenda for Sustainable Growth and Profession in the Next Decade: Embracing Change.
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
In December 2014, the Prime Minister nominated the ICAI for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in addition to other personalities and organisations.
According to CA Raghu, the ICAI would contribute to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in the following way:
- To have special cleanliness drive in all offices, branches, ITT Centres, reading rooms, library, auditoriums etc.
- Awareness campaigns through the vast network of 5 regional councils and 147 branches.
- Constitution of special dedicated committees, promoting paperless environment.
- Raising awareness through competitions, walkathons and workshops.
- Organizing Swachhata Saptah– Cleanliness Week.
- Fixation of sufficient number of waste bins with slogans and encourage people/staff/visitors to use them.
Over 2.35 lakh members and more than 8.50 lakh students of the ICAI, spread across the country, will play a vital role in taking this initiative of the Prime Minister forward and make a success of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, he added.
For more details log on to: www.icai.org or ic.icai.org
About ICAI
As one of the prominent accounting bodies worldwide, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has achieved recognition for its contribution in the fields of education, professional development, maintenance of high accounting, auditing and ethical standards. The Institute has been playing a proactive role in formulation and implementation of technical standards on accounting
Starting with a handful of about 1700 members, today, the strength of Chartered Accountant fraternity has grown to over 2.35 lakh members. On the education front, the ICAI began with mere 259 students and today more than 8.50 lakh active students are a part of ICAI. The ICAI has 5 Regional offices and 147 branches all across the country.The ICAI overseas Chapters continue to spearhead ICAI work program in 26 important jurisdictions globally.
ICAI endeavors to provide quality education and continuous professional education to its members. The ICAI being amongst the largest accounting bodies in the world, has always endeavored to position brand Indian Chartered Accountants globally.
