The Institute of Chartered Accountant of India (ICAI) plans to start women flexi working portal by next week, to facilitate female chartered accountants to work from home and having flexible working hours.

Under the plan, ICAI flexi working portal would allow qualified CA women to have flexible working hours and they can work from any location of their choice. "The portal will be launched on Monday" said K Raghu, president, ICAI.

"Currently, there are approximately 40,000 women CA in the country" said Manoj Fadnis, vice president, ICAI, adding that most of the qualified female chartered accountant either get inactive or work on & off in the profession due to their family obligation after their marriage.

According to the institute, ICAI is trying to bridge gap between the female chartered accountant by bringing them into the action via this portal. The portal would allow CA firms, individual CA practitioner, audit firms and even corporate to outsource the desk job to the female chartered accountants. Desk job usually include audit, back office work, consultant job, drafting, verification, etc.

According to Mr Fadnis, it is observed the women chartered accountants after 30's (age) get engaged into family issues, as they give family a priority.

The institute would also soon organize training programe for the women chartered accountants across 50 locations in the country to impart training for taking up the position of independent director on the corporate board. The new companies act mandates that a company should have at least one women director on the board. "This portal would also encourage women CA to try for director position in the companies" said Mr Raghu.

Mr Raghu also announced that ICAI would set up a new building that would be constructed adjacent to its current ICAI building located on Usmanpura area in Ahmedabad. The new building would have modern facilities like two reader hall and one hitech computer lab.

According to Dhinal Shah, central council member, ICAI informs that approximately Rs 6 to Rs 7 crore will be spend to set up the new building. The money would be disbursed by the ICAI's infrastructure development fund. "The new building would be operationalized in next 10 months" adds Mr Raghu.