ICAI plans to set up placement cell

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) plans to set up a placement cell and head haunting agency for its members. It also plans to tie up with international human resource (HR) consultants.

The Union ministry of commerce, highlighting the export of accounting services as a high potential area, had recently asked ICAI and the Federation of Indian Export Organisation to conduct studies on the potential of the export of accounting services.

The institute may also tap opportunities in the outsourcing sector in the country.

"The institute is looking on the export of accounting services by highlighting skilled workforce in the field of accounting and auditing for the overseas market. The institute, in order to highlight the skilled workforce that India provides in the field of accounting and auditing, has taken several steps for this," said Sunil Goyal, president, ICAI, on Wednesday.

The placement cell, which is expected to be operational in the next one month, will help its members find local and international opportunities. The cell will also help in tapping regions such as the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

"With the General Agreement on Trades and Tariff coming into affect from April 2005, the international market will be widened for India because of its low cost. The Indian market is ready to cater to the international demands in the service sector and specially accounting, taxation, insurance amongst others. Even Indian corporates has started outsourcing and leading banks such as ICICI and HDFC outsource loan sanction, documentation, recovery, appraisal and accounting," said Goyal.

Apart from sending members to various countries, the institute is also focussing on training members on business process outsourcing. Even specific training programmes are being conducted to apprise members of existing opportunities.

The target area is outsourcing in income tax, accounting, auditing and taxation.

The institute is a statutory body established under the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949, for the regulation of the profession of chartered accountancy in India.

The institute is headquartered in New Delhi with five regional offices at Mumbai, Chennai, Kanpur, Kolkata, New Delhi and 98 branches spread all over the country. It also has 11 chapters outside India.

The total membership of the institute is about 1,15,000, while 70 per cent of the members are in practice and over 2,50,000 students are pursuing the chartered accountancy course.

On an average around 8,000 candidates become members of the institute.