Eastern India Regional Council of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) organized a felicitation programme for newly elected President of ICAI Mr. Aniket Sunil Talati and Vice-President Mr. Ranjeet Kumar Agarwal on 21st February in Kolkata. A press meet also was organized to introduce newly elected officials and to share various professional and academic action plans, activities and achievements of ICAI.
“ICAI is contributing in nation building through its education and research activities in the field of accounting, financial reporting and related fields”, said Mr. Aniket Sunil Talati.
Mr. Talati addressed and interacted with the press to share the future plans of ICAI.
The following are the excerpts from their press note:
Under their 2023-24 Action Plan, ICAI is actively participating in G20 endeavours with the Government of India.In the further endeavours, ICAI is benchmarking the global best practices in Sustainability Reporting requirements and Assurance Standards.
ICAI is collaborating with Regulators to meet expectations by continuously developing the framework for assurance services to increase stakeholder’s trust and confidence.
The Institute is focusing on enhancing Audit Quality Mechanism through updated tools through the Centre for Audit Quality.
To answer a question related to role of audit in detecting fraudulent accounting practices ICAI president Mr. Talati said “To detect fraud we have to go for forensic audit which is time consuming. CAs mostly do audit for financial reporting in a time bound manner. Though CAs report irregularities whenever they spot”.
ICAI is venturing into Research and adoption of the newer technologies such as AI, Data Analytics, Block Chain, Cloud Computing etc.
ICAI and The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) have signed a MoU to provide recognition of the qualification, training of each other’s members and admit the members in good standing by prescribing a bridging mechanism on the prevailing terms and conditions. The Parties to this MoU will provide cach other with the information on material changes to their qualifying/admission requirements, CPD policy, exemptions and any other relevant matters.
The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has recently approved the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW).
ICAI collaboration with ICAEW will bring a lot of professional opportunities for Indian CAs in UK and also for Indian CAs who are looking for the global professional opportunities in UK.
ICAI incorporated “Institute of Social Auditors of India” (ISAI). It has been formed in accordance with the decision taken by the Council to form Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) under the aegis of ICAI for regulation of social auditors, as per the SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2022.
ISAI has been formed with the main objective of establishing itself as a leading institution for regulation and development of Social Auditors in an independent and transparent manner, sub- serving the public interest.
The Institute has recently started “ICAI Call Sahayata” initiative to resolve the queries of students, members and stakeholders from across the globe and has already settled more than 75,000 queries The National Call Sahayata shall act as one point of contact for the members and students of the Institute.
For Improving Audit Quality ICAI from 1 April 2023, the Chartered Accountant firms auditing any listed entity or a banking company or an insurance company will have to compulsorily assess their audit quality maturity using the AQMM rev v1.0. The AQMM v1.0 had been launched as a self-evaluation model in July 2021 whereby the firms were recommended to undertake the evaluation.
ICAI has introduced new scheme for education and training. With an aim to develop the next generation of professionals, ICAI has undertaken revision of the Chartered Accountancy course to make it more aligned to the Technological changes, International Developments and National Education Policy.
The Institute has been liasioning with various Universities and Government of India for reorienting the course of commerce education in the country and align the nation’s commerce and accounting education as “One India, One Accounting & One World” to make India a “Vishwaguru” in the accounting world.
ICAI has set the record and entered into Asia Book of Records for ‘Maximum Number of Students Participation in Super Mega Career Counselling Programme. A total of 1,60,648 students of classes IX till Graduation participated in the programme along with their Principals, Teachers and Career Counsellors. The programmes were conducted by 5 Regional Councils and 124 Branches.
Taking forward its mission of contributing as true partner in nation building and empowering students, the Council of ICAI has extended its earlier decision of waiving off 75% fee of registration course fee for all level of CA course for the students of Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh and for the North-Eastern States till 31″ March, 2025.
It was also decided to extend the above fee concession to the students registering from Andaman and Nicobar Islands as well. This decision would be a step forward towards encouraging the young aspirants from these places who wish to pursue their dream of becoming a Chartered Accountant and serve the nation with their capabilities and knowledge.