Circ Suggestions and Issues
CIRC SUGGESTIONS AND ISSUES
REPRESENTATION ON VARIOUS MATTERS TO BE GIVEN TO THE PRESIDENT/ VICE-PRESIDENT FROM CENTRAL INDIA REGIONAL COUNCIL FOR MEMBERS AND STUDENTS
FOR MEMBERS:
1.Professional Opportunities for Members
One of the key areas which CIRC would like to focus is on the identification of new avenues for the profession opportunities for members, especially to the younger members like the proposed GST Act etc. The Central Council may involve the Regional Councils during their discussion with the Government Agencies so that the Regional Councils may provide the input wherever required depending upon the requirements of the State. We can form State Level PDC Committees for coordinating with the Government officials and Central Council Members/ Regional Council member in each state can be members. This will greatly help to create more professional opportunities for members.
2.Role of Chartered Accountants in Co-operative Sector in each State
CIRC requests that the Central Council may take up with the appropriate authorities in the States of Central region for allotment of co-operative audit in the respective States with a minimum acceptable fees (as prescribed by the Council).
3.Decentralization of activities of Members and Students
There was a proposal by the Council to decentralize the activities of members and students in relation to registration of students, distribution of study materials, enrolment of members, issue of COP, grant of Fellowship and other areas of activities but yet to be implemented. In view of the increasing number of members and students and in order to have more effective and speedy disposal of such activities with an objective of achieving quality service to the members and students, the Council may consider decentralizing the activities state-wise.
4. Special Invitees in ICAI Committees:
There was a proposal to include 1 Regional Council Member who may be a special invitee in important Committees of ICAI for smooth working and understanding of scope so that we can undertake events at Regional Level.
5. Regular Training and Updation of Diploma and Post Qualification Courses:
We suggested for Training and Consultancies on Start ups, Labour laws, IT related, DISA, GST, IFRS, Forensic Audit (FAFD) on regular basis so that members are updated and can make best use of them. We also proposed to have webcast of good two days program which are held at different branches so that members may wish to listen to the topics of their interest and get CPE benefit over and above updation of knowledge.
6. Database of Faculties/ Experts in Different Field:
We suggested to create a database of good faculties and experts in different fields and same must be made available at our Website which can help the members to send their issues to the experts and get quick response on their issues. Also this database will also assist branches to invite them on various programs locally near to their place which will be very cost effective.
7. Opportunities in Industry for Newly Qualified CA’s:
We suggested that Members in Industry can be contacted and they can regularly send the requirement for Newly Qualified CA’s opportunities to the Regional Office and the same can be hosted on our website which in turn will help the CA’s to apply and get recruited quickly.
8. CIRC-Chairman should be allowed for the Representation to Government: At present any representation to a government body is restricted from Regional level. It is allowed only from the Head Office level. Therefore, it is suggested that, as, we all are the Regional Council members being elected from various branch of our seven states, and being the representative persons from the state, if we feel the requirement to send any representation to any government bodies, it should be allowed and for that Chairman –CIRC should be allowed to send Representation.
9. Ex-officio Members should be form part of Branch Building/infrastructure committee: - Regional Council Members suggested that Branch Ex-officio member should form part of their respective branch building/infrastructure committee as second representative member.
10. Submission of repetitive certificate should be stopped: - Institute is asking to submit the educational qualification certificates of students which remain the same from the first time registering in the CA Course till the last. This repetitive required submission is a very difficult as well as wastage of time for both i.e students as well as the office. So, it is suggested that we should generate some type of online mechanism in which once the students submit his/her qualification certificate can be obtained by the office in a very simple manner and not required to submit it again and again unless until there is any requirement for some changes.
12. Representation to the Examination Committee of ICAI: New process of appointment of checker needs to be relooked into because in the new system, instead of Qualified Chartered Accountants, anyone can be appointed as CA checker. This should be avoided as this would be very hard ship for our newly qualified Chartered Accountants. It is suggested that we should send a Representation to the Examination committee of ICAI to remove this system and only qualified Chartered Accountants should be appointed as CA Checkers.
13. Chartered Accountants should be authorize to submit a finding of the cases relating to financial matters like cheque bouncing, taxation matters, amalgamation proceedings, contractual disputes etc :- To reduces the pending cases before the courts as well as to extend the scope of services for Chartered Accountants, we suggest that The Institute should put a proposal to the Ministry of Law and Justice to authorize chartered Accountants to submit a finding of the cases relating to financial matters like cheque bouncing, taxation matters, amalgamation proceedings, contractual disputes etc. as an independent report which the judges can resort while giving the judgment as it will save their time to re analyze the cases which are primarily of civil nature from scratch. The members in profession have sufficient exposure in these areas by virtue of their academic studies and relevant practical exposure. There can also be an entrance/license exam conducted by the Ministry of Law and Justice relating to judicial practices of evaluating evidence, civil procedure Code etc.
14. Know your Candidate programme should be conducted at Branch level:- It is suggested that there should be a programme at Branch level namely KNOW YOUR CANDIDATE at the time of election so that it could be easier for the Election contestants as well as the members to know each other as well as there will be a common platform to share the problems and views.
15. New qualified CAs should be given support in Practice as well in Campus placement. Fees from Company's participating in Campus Placement may be considered for reduction. This will bring in many more companies and new CA's will be in a much better chance to get a good job, which is presently going to only those students who have qualified in 1st attempt.
16. Group Term Insurance Scheme for members and spouse: ICAI is having tie up with Birla Sun Life and WIRC for LIC for group term insurance but the Coverage is just 10 lakhs/ 5 lakhs for members/ spouse which is very less in current scenario. The Health Insurance scheme of ICAI with New India Assurance Ltd is very good and members are enjoying the benefits like 45 % discount and many exemptions
17. Database of ATC/ Group 1/ Group 2 Students: We would like if aDatabase of ATC/ Group 1/ Group 2students can be consolidatedto be uploaded on CIRC website and detail mail can be circulated to all the members in Practice and in Industry to use this database for recruitment.
18. Quarterly meeting of Regional chairman or through video conferencing must be done so that we can discuss matters of our Region and issues concerning from Head office can be communicated to Branches, Members and students on timely manner.
19. Head office have communicated the Regional SOP and Finance Manual as well Branch Operating procedures and Finance Manual. We suggest to have a teleconferencing with all the Managing Committee Members of the branch can be done for better understanding and smooth functioning of the branches.
20. Choosing of Examination centers should be Pin code wise: Problem being faced by the students while choosing their preference for the CA exam centers in the big centers because in the big Branch city/centers there are multiple exam centers and all the centers are very far from each others. To clarify the problem by giving the example of Jaipur branch it is informed that Jaipur branch is a big branch having 18 exam centers and while filling the examination form only option comes is Jaipur and when a student chooses the jaipur centre, it may be possible that he gets an exam venue which is at far away distance from their place, and this creates time wastage and unwanted travelling for the student at the time of examination.It is suggested that there should be Pin code wise option for choosing the exam centers for the students so that the students can choose the most comfortable nearby exam centers for themselves to save their precious travelling time.
21. Other General Issues:
(i) Urgently desired Grievance Cell for attending Members and Students issues timely.
(ii) Sending of membership acknowledgment through post should be stopped since every member is getting mail in the same evening on which day the fee is entered into the system. Member should be given the facility to take the print out of the fee acknowledgement as and when they desired so.
(iii) In the Month of Jan every year we are sending about more than 20 pages circular to all the members which should be modified. Only membership fee circular with member’s card should be sent to members and other materials should be hosted on the website of the ICAI for the reference of the members.
(iv) Members must be allowed to edit their personal and professional details online through One time password instead of sending physical documents.
(v) Submission of various Forms online instead of sending hard copies to the office.
(vii) Since only one % of total members are taking the benefit of paying the fee through ECS Mandate and it was introduced before the online payment facility hence ECS facility should be withdrawn.
(viii) There should be some facility from where members can know about the dues of their annual fee through their Login/ Password.
(ix) Online payment of fees can be directly linked to the CIRC office which will ease the process and updation can be done on the same day or next day.
(x) Popularise E-Sahayaata so that Members and Students can make best use of this facility.
(xi). Lot of Material is being sent to Branches without any requisition and this material remains at branch for years and then had to be destroyed. This incurs huge cost of the Institute.
(xii). Each branch should be equipped with digital library so that new members can utilise the online available resources.
(xiii). Branch must be provided with the updatedList of Members once in six months for better communication andevents/ programscan be organised with good presence.
(xvi). We suggest that during theConvocation of New Members, Regional Council Member of that branch where Convocation is held must be given proper recognition.
(xv). Pendency letter should be generated in the system automatically. Normally, following are the discrepancies.
COP-
a. Short fees
b. Signature mismatch
c. Photograph required.
c. Permission for other engagement
COP Cancellation
a. Short fees
b. Application not within 30 days.
Fellowship
a. Engagement details between break period
b. Self declaration form
(xvi).All the qualifications like DISA DIRM IFRS should directly uploaded against members qualification. It is a small issue being raised since long is not getting resolved. Even we have requested to Examination Department to provide the region wise result of these qualifications that also could not make available to us otherwise we would have done it manually one by one.
(xvii). Revenue Grant of branches may reasonably increased as the same has not been done for more than 5 years more particularly in our region where the Regional office has only 1400 members out the total strength of 42500 members in our Region.
(xviii). Matter of Salary of Branch employee is pending for long time. This must be pursued at the earliest in order to retain the existing and sincere staff at the branches.
(Xix) For issuing the Removal and Restoration Notifications we should skip the names of retrospective restoration as already being done in case of COP cancellation.
(xx) Change in address module of citrix system should have one more field that i.e. the effective date of change in address like other modules like COP issuance Admission as fellow member etc then while isssuing change in address letter we will inform the member that your address has been changed w.e.f......
If it is done then it will be easier to take the address of the member as on 01/04/ of every year for LOM or LOV purpose
STUDENTS RELATED MATTERS:
1. Study Material:
To ensure Timely Delivery of Latest Edition CPT/IPCC/FINAL Study Material round the year & especially during rush period of Registrations.
2. ITT Course:
ITT certificates is to be issued from any Regional office irrespective of the region where the student is registered in IPCC/IIPCC. This will ensure timely delivery of ITT certificates to the student & reduce the hardship faced by the student.
3. Popularization of CA Course:
In order to popularize the CA Course across the Region, the Regional Councils and Branches have been extensively conducting Career Counselling Programmes either at the College or School Premises or at a designated place depending upon the number of students likely to participate.
Committee on Career Counseling may bring out advertisements about CA Course in vernacular language newspapers with contact details of relevant Regional and Decentralised Offices, Regional Councils and its Branches.
Committee on Career Counseling, either directly or through Regional Councils or its Branches should participate in all possible Career Counseling Programmes organized by NGOs and Event Management Companies and Newspaper organizations.
The number of Scholarships (merit as well as merit cum need based) granted by the Institute is minuscule when compared to the number of students on rolls in various levels of the CA Course.
4. Other General Issues:
- As per recent Central Govt. Directions there is no need of attestation copies of the relevant documents from Notary or Gazetted officers, only self attested documents is sufficient, so please consider the matter appropriately for the benefits of students as 90% of Discrepancy cases are due to non compliance of Educational certificates attestation.
- E-mail/SMS is to be send to the student automatically whenever Study Material (CPT/IPCC/FINAL) is issued to the student. This will make students informed in advance that their study material is dispatched & will reduce unnecessary enquiry regarding study material.
- Discrepancy letters for CPT/Final Course online must generate automatically.
- Auto generation of Note sheet for refund of fees related to CPT/IPCC/Final Course.
- Free distribution study material statement should be made system Generated instead of manual.
- Virtual Classes to be started as cheap cost in all the branches more particularly in big branches to start with and cover all the branches in the region.
- Nationwide uniform coaching delivery under the supervision of a Board of Studies with standardised methodology, faculty empanelment and regular training for trainers (faculties) programme.
- Databank of questions should be developed by inviting questions from all (for remuneration)and model questions should be available for self evaluation.
- To constitute Paper wise Expert groups at all levels of Examination (existing and new) to review the gaps between training and examination and provide suggestions to overcome those gaps and time bound implementation of those suggestions.
- Starting of Sunday test at all branches.