Stop protection, govt tells ICAI

The government has ticked off the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India's protectionist stance against competition from multinational accounting firms.

The ICAI should strengthen itself to counter outside competition rather than looking for ways to bar foreign players from operating in the domestic territory, said MMK Sardana, secretary, department of company affairs, after releasing the 175th issue of All India Chartered Accountants' Society journal Chartered Accountant World, late Thursday evening.

"The ICAI needs to concentrate on polishing their R&D to give them a competitive edge that would help the association to challenge the onslaught of the 'Big Four' through professional excellence," he said.

According to Sardana, every threat from abroad should be seen as an opportunity and Indian entrepreneurs have time and again met foreign competition squarely. He pointed out that there was no reason why CAs could not follow suit.

The ICAI council had recently taken a stern view of the practices of multinational accounting firms (MAFs) and had requested the government to see if they had flouted any entry norms.

It had even decided that the MAFs, which were undertaking consulting business in India, should not bear the same or similar name of their audit firms. These were viewed by the MAFs as an attempt to curtail their presence in India.

Sardana said the journal, Chartered Accountant World, would provide an ideal forum where original and constructive ideas could orginate. "We need to get out of the syndrome that western practices are superior. Any kind of academic initiative which seeks indigenous solutions to problems is always welcome," Sardana said.

Vinod Jain, an ICAI council member, said that the council was trying to ensure that Indian professionals were able to compete with foreign players on a level-playing ground.

He said the journal supplemented the association's efforts at providing accounting services. He said that the council had to adopt just one more accounting standard in addition to the existing 29, to be at par with the international norms.

The journal's objective was to convey to the ICAI members the developments in the financial world concisely and as quickly as possible.