As part of its Capacity Building Exercise, Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICAI) today launched the country’s first CMA (Cost and Management Accounts) Lab here.

The facility would help the members of the institute in up-skilling and upgrading, by providing hands-on training on various aspects of cost and management audit, ICAI President, Manas Kumar Thakur told reporters.

With 94 chapters across India, the Institute has decided to open such labs at all chapters, which will function as help desk for traders and government officials in their endeavour for national building and the first such lab was opened in the city, he said.

Stating that the scope of the profession was getting widened and was in the threshold of a paradigm shift with the advent of GST, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India ((Insolvency Professional) Regulations 2016, Thakur said that in order to build the necessary skill sets for meeting such challenges, ICAI has tied up with National Skill Development Agency for conducting programmes for fresh graduates.

It has also entered into agreements with many State governments including Kerala for starting such training centres across the districts there, he said.

On the progress of Activity Based Costing (ABC) in Railways, Thakur said that it is a phase-wise project initiated to identify and track high cost units for cost analysis and control and the exercise will start by next month end. The institute is in dialogue with the Port and Air Port Authorities for a similar ABC analysis, Thakur said.

Thakur also said that the Institute, which has nine Centres of Excellence across India, has plans to set up centres in each State to carry out research and study.

It was also proposed to start extension centres in foreign countries to attract more FDI, he said.

The Coimbatore chapter of ICAI has already tied up with some educational institution to facilitate students pursue Cost Accountancy Programme, its chairperson, Meena Ramji said.