News & Updates

Setback to ICAI: Parliamentary Committee recommends Setting Up of IIAs

On the above issue, an Independent witness submitted the following suggestion: 

"Establishment of Indian Institutes of Accounting

This proposal is for establishing a string of Indian Institute of Accounting (IIA) that will raise the standards of accounting education and offer competition to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Here is an outline of what the IIAs would be like:

• The IIAs will be statutory bodies established by a central law similar to IITs and IIMs.
• They will set up in different parts of India.
• Each IIA will have a board of governors consisting of experts, lay persons, and government officers drawn, among others from the Ministry of finance, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, The Board size will be ten.
• The board will have full functional, financial and administrative autonomy for its efficient functioning.
• Each IIA will have an Academic Council that will develop the curriculum. The undergraduate curriculum will have financial and cost accounting, auditing, tax, law, business strategy, oraganisational behaviour, management, governance and public administration, technology, data science, psychology and other fields relevant to the wide role that accountants play.
• IIAs will start with a Five year undergraduate programme in accounting, overtime they will develop post-graduate programmes in specialized areas such as forensic accounting, business analytics, cyber security, valuation, International tax and other relevant fields. Once these programmes stabilise, they will develop PhD Programmes.
• Admission will be through a national entrance test after secondary schooling under the National Educational Policy 2020.
• Those who qualify in the under graduate programme will be given two degrees, a Bachelor of Accounting and a Bachelor of Business. This will give them a choice of the stream they want to go into.
• They will be given licence to practise similar to CAs. The licence holders will be called Certified Professional Accountants (CPAs). They will be required to register them selves with a Central Licensing Authority (such as NFRA) which will handle their disciplinary matters.

The proposal visualizes the IIAs as academic institutions that educate licensed professionals similar to AIIMS, PGI, JIPMER, National Law Schools, and so on. In contrast, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India will be a professional certification agency, much the same way it is now.