Growing Challenges in CA Profession: Good opportunity too?

Chartered accountancy profession in our country was a very respectable profession . The profession in last 70 years has grown to great heights having current strength of 300000 approx. CAs. Out of these 40% are in practice and rest in job. The ratio towards job is increasing every year due to various challenges in the profession. CA profession has changed drastically in last 15 years due to technological and economical changes. The profession first saw major revolution in nineties when the Indian economy was opening up and the interaction with the outside world had just started. Later the technological advancement pushed it towards system based tools and methods. 

CA profession these days has been in severe criticism due to unethical and manipulative practice of some Chartered accountants. Such people may not be more than 5% but this is sufficient to spoil the image of all. This has also affected the social reputation of CAs. Another factor affecting the profession is self interest of some of the elected body  members who are representing the profession. It is being noticed since quite some time that few elected members try to grab more business or develop the connection with politics s and government authorities to serve the personal interests by using the platform of the profession and spoiling the image. Also the disciplinary actions against the erring members is too slow and mostly they get Scot free. These days most of the financial scams are having one common factor i.e CA along with the accused. GOI has taken various measures to control these but so far improvement is not yet been noticed. In fact, CA profession is witnessing very serious challenges due to govt actions including setting up of NFRA (National Financial Reporting Authority) , a supreme body over the CA Institute.

Despite all these above challenge the profession has expanded to various new verticals which are quite lucrative too comparing the traditional verticals. In last five years, role of CA has expanded to new areas like GST, Forensic, Insolvency, Financial Restructuring, System Audits . Although all these carry lot of accountability too on the part of the Professional. The future of this profession is quite good considering the economic growth of our country. But the current situation is scaring the professionals to plunge into practice and they prefer jobs which may change once the callenges settles down or the professionals get accustomed too. Wish we will not only recover the lost ground but also scale new heights.

CP