The Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICAI) is planning to set up 1,000 cost management accounting (CMA) support centres across the country in the next 12 months.

“We are planning to open one centre in each district across the country. Around 300 such centres are ready to be launched by next week,” ICAI president M Gopalkrishnan told mediapersons here on Monday. 

“The demand is so huge that we are not able to meet the requirement. According to a study done by the government three years ago, there is a demand for one million CA professionals a year. Seeing the demand, we are setting up the CMA support centres and also planning to train 500,000 students in the next two years,” he said. 

The main objective of the centres will be to train students from rural, semi-urban, and Tier-III and Tier-IV cities. The centres will be opened through the help of various educational institutions and other eligible organisations and enable the students to get practical training in IT, taxation, corporate law and other areas.

Launching a new advanced course – Performance Management and Appraisal System – at ICAI’s Hyderabad centre of excellence, he said, “This course is aimed at meeting the growing demand of cost accounting professional in the country. Through the short-term course, we can train many students on capacity-building with hands-on experience.”

ICAI has plans to launch two more courses – business valuations and corporate restructuring and corporate treasury and risk management – by September this year.

Gopalkrishnan pointed out that the demand for accounting professionals was growing leaps and bounds.

The institute has also plans to start short-term courses at industry-level for mid-level managers. It has set up a committee to do a survey to find out areas which needs to be focused on. (Business Standard)