ICWAI moots free course for Agniveers

Nagpur: The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) has offered to conduct free course in basic accountancy for soldiers leaving the Army after their four-year tenure as Agniveers. For this, it has asked the government to include it in the skill development programme.
ICWAI, which has its head office in Kolkata, is the governing body of cost accountancy professionals formed by an enactment of law.
ICWAI’s vice-president Vijender Sharma said the institute has a one-year certified accountants’ course, which deals with general aspects of accountancy. The ICWAI has held talks with the defence ministry and has proposed to offer the course free to the Agniveers. For this the institute is insisting that this should be recognized as a skill development course. After such a recognition, it can be offered free to the Agniveers as the cost will be borne by the government.
It will be over and above the main cost accountancy course. After successful completion of the course, the soldiers can get white collared jobs in the accounting profession, he said.
Sharma and other senior office-bearers of the ICWAI were in the city to attend a seminar on farmers producers organizations (FPOs).
Institute president P Raju Iyer said the ICWAI has also tied up with Indian Statistical Institute and will be carrying out an exercise to estimate cost of cultivation of various crops.
In Vidarbha, it has selected paddy and chana (gram). Villages in Bhandara and Wardha districts have been chosen for the sample study. Nagpur’s veteran cost accountant Shrihari Chava is the convenor of the project.
Iyer said the idea is to come up with a more scientific method of estimating the cost of cultivation in the country. A number of aspects like family labour, interest rate, depreciation of assets, livestock performance and maintenance will be taken into account during the exercise, he said.
The idea is to present it before the government so that it may be even considered while fixing minimum support price (MSP). However, it is an own initiative of the ICWAI and not under any mandate of the government, he said.