Now a day, some bad news, views and experiences are floating everywhere related to lack of employment in CA profession. Some people are saying that now CA’s are getting the status of B.com graduates. They also refer to campus placements organized by Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Do these indicate that CA profession has missed the Prestige, Monetary Security and coveted career associated with the words CA. Here I am trying to analyze the situation of CA’s in Present scenario.
We have to go 5 years back to understand the change. It is true that introduction of CPT (entrance exam of CA course in lieu of P-I) has introduced more students in the course than ever. It is an objective type course and is less difficult than P-I due to easy format, coaching basis pattern and availability of question banks etc. rather than concepts. In old days, when there was p-I course, students had to think more and more before entering in the course. Now it is common tendency among the students to give cpt once or twice to enter the course just for try their luck or ability to pass it. Cpt helped coaching institutes or coaching institutes helped CPT students to grow, it is a debatable subject and I am not going to discuss it.
The high percentage of ca exam result in last few years is another true fact. Gone are the days when the pass percentage was in single digit. Now, this figure stands at 20-40%. The result of first cpt exam was more than 60 %. May be it was quality of students or first chance for both students and Institute or simply high demand. Whatever, it made blast among commerce students towards ca course. They run towards the registration with ca institute. I can’t decide whether it was success or failure of the Institute, but it was a big change in the trend. The results of p-II /pcc/ipcc and final old/new also increased significantly.
At the same time, the era of global slowdown began. The period of so called global recession may be counted from 2007-2008 to present. The clash of these two resulted in decrease of the demand of CAs. Also It resulted in the reduction of average package of newly qualified CA’s (with some exceptions). I admit that I too joined the course after hearing that the average package of the CA’s is around Rs. 6 lack per annum.
May be it is now tough time for every fresh CA at present. But this situation will change. There will be huge demand for CAs once the government of India takes the major steps towards reforms in slowing economy. GST bill, Companies (amendment) 2011, Direct tax code, FDI in retail, Permanent ban on retrospective laws to improve confidence of Investments are major decisions to be taken by Government in near future. India has a capacity to grow with double digit rate. Its population is 2nd largest in the world and so is the demand. The Only need is a proper policy for effective utilization of available resources and effective execution of that policy. When India achieves the higher growth rate than present, the scenario will improved a lot. We need to have faith, patience and continuous self development and updating according to time.
As we know that Chartered Accountants enjoy a statutory monopoly in audit of financial statements under various statutes in India. They also enjoy the ability to prepare and verify many documents required for various purposes. They can either practice like a doctor or do a job in public/ private sector. Many other options like teaching in schools, colleges and coaching center, set up a firm, company etc. are also open for CA’s. New options will be available soon.
Updated knowledge is the biggest quality of a profession as well as professional. Just like a CA must update himself with each change in tax and other laws to provide better advice to his clients. Better you equipped means better you rewarded. Better to improve yourself than seeking security. Knowledge itself is the best security.
Deepak Kumar Sharma
CAclubindia
