ICAI national meet gets under way

Vice President of the ICAI G. Ramaswamy arriving at the venue of the Chetana, All India Conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in Visakhapatnam on Friday. Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam.

A two-day national conference on direct taxes ‘Chetana', organised by the Visakhapatnam branch of Southern India Regional Council (SIRC) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) was inaugurated by the ICAI vice president G. Ramaswamy at the Port Kalavani auditorium on Friday.

He spoke about the various initiatives being undertaken by the institute for the professional development of its members, its contribution to socio-economic growth and for providing the competitive edge to students all over the country.

Chairman of SIRC of ICAI K. Babu Abraham, Chairman of Direct Taxes Committee of ICAI Jayant P. Gokhale, ICAI Visakhapatnam branch leaders C.M. Ravi Prasad, AVS Lalitha Sundari and Prasanna, Central council leaders J. Venkateswarlu and Devraj Reddy were among those who attended.

Later addressing a media conference, Mr. Ramaswamy said that the institute has recently constituted a special group to study the guidelines of Members of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) Scheme of the Central Government and to recommend areas for improvement with regard to accounts and audit as part of the scheme. The group would review the existing provisions, procedures and formats prescribed under the scheme and thereby help it in achieving the desired objectives.

The institute has started an exercise to train its members on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) so to expand their knowledge and base. The institute has taken upon itself to act as a catalyst to the process of implementation of IFRS.

Mr. Ramaswamy said that the ICAI has signed MoUs with various international counterparts to augment bilateral relationships which would be mutually beneficial to the members. Mutual Reciprocal Arrangements have been signed with ICAEW, ICA Australia, CPA Australia and CPA Ireland. The institute has recently interacted with professional bodies in Middle East, Singapore and New Zealand.

Speaking of student initiatives, he said that the institute was the only professional accountancy body in the world that was imparting theoretical education directly and providing worldwide inputs like study material, suggested answers and select case studies. The institute would soon launch virtual classrooms to enable students to access lectures on varied subjects by renowned faculty.