At the outset, I would like to wish you all the peace, health, happiness and prosperity in the New Year 2014. May the New Year bring more and more moments of happiness and satisfaction in everybody’s life! May the New Year be more rewarding to you and your loved ones both personally and professionally! May the momentum of taking new tasks and completing them for the overall benefit of our professional brethren be continued! May the new professional opportunities and professional avenues is the mantra of the year! May the flag of our profession always remain high with pride!
I would also like to take this opportunity to share that beginning New Year from 1st January 2014 I had been appointed as the President of the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) for one year. SAFA, an Apex Body of SAARC and recognized Acknowledged Accounting Group by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), is having ten accounting institutions as its members from six countries namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Observer Status has been given to Bhutan and Afghanistan. As always, I assure you my full commitment and relentless efforts in furthering the accountancy profession in the region and fulfilling SAFA objectives.
Since the last communication with you sharing details of various initiatives taken by the Institute, I am pleased to inform you some recent developments/projects that have been completed/ launched for the benefit of you all:
- Expanding the ICAI reach further, the Council has recently approved the formation of five new branches and one new Chapter. These branches are Dibrugarh and Tinsukia in Eastern region, and Warangal, Karimnagar and Ongole in Southern region. New Chapter will be formed at Uganda (Kampala).
- ICAI Connect, a self service portal, for the members of ICAI has been launched. The features of the this portal includes My Profile, My Announcements, My Payments, My Articles, My Application Status, e-Services, My Firms, My Software(s), Letters & Certificates, CPE Hours, Guidelines of Networking, Merger & Demerger etc.
- Launched the e-Samadhan portal for resolving the professional queries of the members. The empanelled professionals will answer the queries raised by the members in various areas of the profession. Members need to log in to SSP and click on ‘e-samadhan’ to register their query.
- MoUs with Bharatiya Mahila Bank Ltd.: ICAI has taken a major initiative for arranging the Educational Loan for the Students of ICAI and specialized loan scheme for the members of ICAI from Bharatiya Mahila Bank Ltd., New Delhi (First of its kind Banking Service provider for Ladies customer). While the education loan will cover most of the fee and other expenses payable to institute for the Students, on the other hand the specialized loan scheme, as a capacity building measure, will cater to the capital needs for construction of office premises, for acquisition of ready built office premises, to finance cost of land etc. The Female students and members would avail 1% discount in the aforesaid scheme from the prevailing rate of interest offered by Bharatiya Mahila Bank Ltd.
I am sure that you all will get benefited by all these initiatives.
Thanking you,
With kind regards,
CA. Subodh Kr. Agrawal
President
