Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) President G. Ramaswamy on Friday urged the Chartered Accountants to gear up to face the number of challenges facing the profession.

Chartered Accountants are facing stiff competition in the form of numerous legislations such as Companies Bill, Goods and Services Tax, from technological advancements and also from non-accounting professionals such as Valuers and Company Secretaries.

The country was also soon going to adopt an Indian version of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), principles-based standards, interpretations and the framework adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

Addressing a function to dedicate a new building at the ICAI Bhawan here, he said, We have to upgrade our skills and scale up by establishing bigger firms. Since the liberalisation in India in 1991, competition has become intense with foreign direct investment flowing into manufacturing, services and infrastructure sector. Revenue collection and budget outlays had increased manifold.

The Chartered Accountants in India must equip themselves to become global accounting professionals and ICAI must become a global accounting profession. Towards this direction, ICAI had already inked agreements with accounting firms in other countries such as England.

While the professional membership had exponentially increased from 1,700 in 1949 to 1.83 lakh now, 90 per cent of the present members were into private employment with corporates or partnerships with a very few into public practice.

Mr. Ramaswamy also urged senior members to encourage the youngsters to take to public practice.

K. Shanmukha Sundaram, Chairman of Southern Indian Regional Council (SIRC), ICAI, said that the Institute was focussing on creating infrastructure and IT facility in all branches across the country. The SIRC was working towards creating awareness about Chartered Accountancy.

V. Sivakumar, Chairman, ICAI Madurai Branch, P. Saravanan, secretary, P.V. Rajarejeswaran, Ex-Officio Member, P. Rajendra Kumar and M. Devaraja Reddy, Central Council members, spoke.