Technology is the future and professional Chartered Accountants (CAs) cannot survive without using it. The rules of the game have changed but, thankfully, the profession has adapted itself to the changes, said Debashis Mitra, president, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
The ICAI president participated as the chief guest at the inaugural of a two-day national conference ‘Dhirya’, organised by the Visakhapatnam Branch of South India Regional Council(SIRC) of the ICAI, which commenced here on Friday.
Addressing the delegates, Mr. Mitra said that knowledge and drafting skills alone were not enough and CAs should keep themselves abreast of the latest developments in the field as there was no escape, with technology pervading almost all sectors. The ICAI was working on development of audit tools and would soon provide them to its members free of cost.
National call centre
The institute was planning to establish a national call centre by November, this year, for the benefit of members and students to clear their doubts, he said.
He called upon members to accept challenges and come out with solutions to improve professional standards. It goes to the credit of the ICAI that the Supreme Court in a recent judgment had asked one of the parties to learn from the ICAI, if they wanted to conduct an examination. In 2019, the Government of India wanted SEBI to set up a Social Stock Exchange for NGOs to raise funds. SEBI wondered as to who would audit the exchange. “SEBI had banked on us (ICAI) and I readily agreed to develop social audit standards but wanted SEBI to recognise the efforts of our institute in regulating social audit,” he said.
Recalling an interaction with the RBI Deputy Governor, Mr. Mitra said that the RBI Deputy Governor said that with banks going for mergers and the number of branches coming down, what was the point in public sector banks having hundreds of auditors, when foreign banks could do with a half-a-dozen auditors. “I replied that unlike foreign banks our documents are not digitised and he said that digitisation would be done within the next two to three years. The positive outcome was that we are interacting with the RBI once in three months for exchange of views on the way forward,” he said.
World Congress of Accountants
Mr. Mitra also said that the World Congress of Accountants will be held in Mumbai from November 18 to 21. It is being held in India after over 100 years.
SIRC chairman China Masthan Talakayala, Central Council Members (CCMs) Purushottamlal Khandelwal(Ahmedabad), CV Chitale (Pune), D. Prasanna Kumar(Visakhapatnam) and Visakhapatam branch chairman G. Vasudevamurty were among those who spoke.
