Roadmap for Viksit Bharat - Reimagining the Profession

Viksit Bharat @ 2047

Viksit Bharat is the vision of our Hon'ble Prime Minister, Shri. Narendra Modi, to transform India into a developed nation by 2047, synchronising with the centenary celebrations of India's independence. The four pillars of Viksit Bharat are Yuva (Youth), Garib (Poor), Mahilayen (Women), and Annadata (Farmers). The vision of Viksit Bharat is to build a prosperous India, equipped with modern infrastructure, where every citizen across all regions has equal opportunities to grow and achieve their full potential. Significant dimensions of Viksit Bharat are Resilient Economy, Environmental Stability, Inclusive & Harmonious Society, and Agile & Robust Governance. The vision for Viksit Bharat is a country characterised by zero poverty, quality school education for all, access to high-quality, affordable, and comprehensive health care, skilled labour with meaningful employment, higher participation of women in economic activities, and farmers making India the 'Food Basket of the World'.

The Union Budget 2024-25 is reflective of these objectives of Viksit Bharat, by focusing on nine priorities viz., productivity and resilience in agriculture, employment and skilling, inclusive human resource development and social justice, growth in manufacturing and services, urban development, energy security enhancement, infrastructure development, innovation, research & development and the next generation reforms.

Subsequently, in the Union Budget 2025-26, four engines of growth have been identified, viz., Agriculture, MSME, Investment and Exports, to achieve increased growth, secure inclusive development, enhance the spending power of India's rising middle class, invigorated private sector investments, and uplifted household sentiments.

Select Key Sectors

IT and BPM are two of the vital sectors supporting the economy by contributing about 10% of the GDP. India enjoys the largest market share at 55% in global IT outsourcing. This sector is instrumental in making India the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world, with over 100 unicorns. In the automobile sector, India is the largest electric two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturer globally. India accounts for 40% of the total US $31 billion of global engineering and R&D spend in this sector. This sector contributes about 6% of GDP.

The Indian pharmaceutical sector is the 3rd largest in terms of volume globally. India emerged as the largest vaccine producer with a 60% global share. Not only did India produce the required vaccines during the COVID-19 period, but it also exported and supported over 100 countries in their fight against the pandemic. In terms of transport network globally, India can boast of having the 2nd largest road network, the 3rd largest aviation market, the 4th largest rail network, and being the 16th largest maritime country. The telecom sector is another fastest growing sector, with India having the second highest number of internet subscribers globally. The BFSI and Fintech sectors are also growing exponentially. Over the next two decades, the Indian banking sector is expected to emerge as the 3rd largest domestic banking sector.

Another sector with immense potential is Tourism and Hospitality. Ranked 39th on the global travel and tourism development index, this sector contributes around 5% of the GDP, proving itself to be a major foreign exchange earner for the country, along with the tea and food processing sectors. India has immense potential for cultural tourism, eco-tourism, medical tourism, and spiritual tourism. With the development of infrastructure, this sector is bound to grow at a faster pace year after year. Presently, IT Services, Petroleum Products, Textiles, Gems & Jewellery, and Tea sectors are significant earners of foreign exchange for the nation. Finally, ranked as the 5th largest market globally, Media and Entertainment is another promising sector to drive the nation's economic growth.

Government Reforms propelling Growth

The major reforms that have propelled the growth trajectory of the Indian economy, together with the objective of inclusiveness, include the Production Link Incentive (PLI) scheme, Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, Atal Pension Yojana, Mudra Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, and PM Gati Shakti. Similarly, the initiatives of Digital India, Skill India, Make in India, Stand Up India, Goods and Service Tax (GST), Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) and the progressive reforms for the MSME Sector are paving the way for accelerated overall development of the economy.

India's total exports increased by 76% over the last decade, reaching US$ 825 Bn in 2024-25, led by engineering goods, electronics, and pharmaceuticals. Out of this, services exports constituted US$ 387 Bn. During 2024-25, the cumulative FDI inflows reached US$ 1.05 trillion. Digital transactions surged 9x in volume between 2017-18 and 2023-24, with UPI processing 172 Bn transactions during the year 2024. Inflation is in control at an average of 5% during the last decade through targeted fiscal and monetary policies. Retail inflation was reduced to 4.6% in 2024-25.

Outlook for India's GDP Growth

In spite of the global slowdown, India is expected to record a growth rate of 6.5% during 2025-26. India overtook Canada in 2010 to become the 9th largest GDP sized economy (on a nominal basis). In 2015, it surpassed Italy and Brazil to emerge as the 7th largest economy, and overtook France to be ranked as the 6th largest economy globally in 2018. In March 2020, India almost surpassed the United Kingdom, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, this progress was derailed. However, during 2021, India regained its momentum to achieve the 5th rank. In 2025, India will become the 4th largest global economy, surpassing Japan. It is expected that India will relegate Germany to the 4th spot in 2027 when it scales up beyond a $5 trillion size to become the 3rd largest economy in the world. India's economy is on track to achieve the projected GDP of $7.3 trillion by 2030.

The United States of America (USA), which is now at $30.51 trillion, took eight years to add the second trillion to its GDP, five years to add the third trillion, and thereafter added almost one trillion in every two years. Similarly, China, which is now at $19.23 trillion, took seven years to add the second trillion to its GDP, four years to add the third trillion, and thereafter added almost one trillion in every other year. Generally, the growth engine of every economy stabilizes by the time it achieves the size of three trillion. Thereafter, if all the enablers to economic growth are in place, then the momentum would be unstoppable. India, now at $4.3 trillion, with the immense untapped potential in vital sectors, will now accelerate its growth to add one trillion to the GDP size once every two years, if not in every alternate year.

Risks to India's Economic Outlook

In India's journey to become a developed economy, there are certain risks that need to be factored in and mitigated. This includes global economic slowdown, climate change, inflation, energy import dependency, geopolitical tensions, capital outflows, technology and supply chain disruptions, and labour market challenges. These risks need to be adequately addressed in a calibrated manner.

Mitigation measures for countering above risks could encompass stable and predictive policy environment, investing in physical and digital infrastructure, deepening domestic financial markets, strengthening supply chains and creating alternative sources of procurement, investing in sustainable practices, establishing effective disaster management systems, promoting entrepreneurship, supporting innovation & startups and enhancing domestic manufacturing capabilities.

"Accountancy, the backbone of financial management, plays a pivotal role in ensuring transparency, accountability, and efficient resource allocation, which are crucial for the sustained, stable economic growth of a nation."

Accounting Profession and Economic Development

Economic development and the growing importance of the accountancy profession are intricately linked. Accountancy, the backbone of financial management, plays a pivotal role in ensuring transparency, accountability, and efficient resource allocation, which are crucial for the sustained, stable economic growth of a nation.

Some of the key linkages between economic growth and accountancy profession arise from the critical functions such as ensuring regulatory and statutory compliance, driving corporate governance and ethics, enforcing structural financial reporting, adherence to Ind AS and applicable global standards, formulating and facilitating efficient tax compliance, strengthening institutions, supporting small businesses, enabling efficient resource allocation. In order to facilitate this and given the growing importance of the integration of the Indian economy globally, it is crucial to continuously build the capacity of the accountancy firms to match the global outreach of Indian businesses. Further, the CA profession can, in synergy with the Regulators and Government Departments, facilitate ease of doing business in the country. If GST collections have recorded Rs. 2.36 lakh crores in April 2025, which is the highest since its introduction in 2017, the credit should go equally to the Government Officials who have been implementing the law and to the members of the CA profession who have been constantly guiding the tax-paying community. Every CA should assume the role of a goodwill ambassador of the Government in the efficient implementation and compliance with the fiscal and other relevant legislations.

Accounting Services Market

The size of the global accounting services sector was about US $676.73 billion last year, and it is expected to reach US $804.27 billion in 2028 with a CAGR of 4.4%. India accounts for a share of 3.8% of the global accountancy market and has phenomenal scope to increase its share in the medium term. It is heartening to know that the Government is currently examining liberalisation of laws and regulations to facilitate the growth and expansion of Indian CA Firms, so that the next BIG 4 firms are of Indian origin. It is equally heartening that the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has come out with "The Exposure Draft on proposed Guidelines for Overseas Network". Once the legal framework relaxations come into play, we can rest assured that many Indian Accounting Firms will consolidate and synergise to spread wings pan-India and across the globe.

Paradigm Shifts in the CA Profession

The profession was chartered by an Act of Parliament in 1949, even before India became a Republic, and has been growing steadily, pursuing well-established educational, professional, and ethical standards. With the advent of the 21st century, the CA profession experienced a paradigm shift in many facets related to the profession. Indian CA was originally perceived as a number cruncher, but later came to be viewed as a strategic thinker. Earlier, CAs were meant to merely provide inputs for decision making, but later were considered competent decision makers. The rise of CAs in industry conventionally was up to the level of Chief Financial Officer (CFO), whereas now CAs have risen to the level of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

The number of aspirants to qualify as a CA has grown manifold, which is reflected in the membership growth as well. At present, the total membership strength of the profession is 4,29,069 of which first 51 years (1949-2000) contributed 92,980 (21%); during the next 10 years, i.e., by 2010, membership added was 71,142 (17%), and during the last 15 years the addition has been 2,64,947 (62%).

In terms of gender diversity, from the inception of ICAI, over a period of 51 years till 2000, the strength of female CAs rose hardly to 8% (7,826) out of the total membership of 92,980. Over the next decade, the growth of female CAs gained momentum, doubling to 16% (26,223) in 2010 when the total membership strength was 1,64,122. Currently, among the total strength of 4,29,069 members, the strength of female CAs has seen a phenomenal increase to 1,30,274, accounting for 30.36% as against male membership numbering 2,98,795, accounting for 69.64%.

Yet another paradigm shift is that while the number of CAs with Certificate of Practice (COP) was overwhelming during the 20th Century, the strength of CAs without COP began to accelerate during the 21st Century. In 2000, out of the total membership of 92,980, CAs with COP constituted 71% (65,843) as against CAs without COP at 29% (27,137). It was during 2011 that the CAs without COP numbering 85,992 (50.4%) surpassed the strength of CAs with COP, constituting 84,618 (49.6%) of the total strength of 1,70,610. As of date, CAs with COP account for only 1,62,947 (37.98%) as against those without COP numbering 2,66,069 (62.02%).

Capacity Building of the CA Profession

With the restriction on the number of partners in a firm (20) having been removed a decade ago, CA firms have been consistently growing to build their capacities both in terms of human resources and the bandwidth for handling a large volume of work. There are 98,861 practice units in India, out of which 71,915 are sole proprietary concerns or individual practitioners. Among the remaining 26,946 practice units constituted by partners, 25,316 are functioning as traditional Partnership Firms, and the rest of the 1,630 are registered as Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs). The strength of partners is indicated at the bottom, and the aggregate number of firms and LLPs in each category are given at the top in the chart. For example, 2 partners firms are 14,279 and LLPs are 759 aggregating to 15,038. Only 13 LLPs are constituted and functioning in the category of beyond 50 partners.

Despite the steady growth in the number of accounting professionals in India, the ratio of CAs to the population remains disproportionately low, underscoring an urgent need for capacity building in the profession. India's expanding economy, increasing complexity of regulations, and growing focus on transparent reporting practices have and will continue to lead to higher demand for accounting services. To cater to this demand, it is essential to expand access to CA education through digital platforms, financial aid, and localized training centres. Promoting awareness about the profession among students will also help in attracting talent in the sector. Concomitant with the skill development, it is essential to ensure strategic focus on technology adoption to empower the accounting professionals in the digital age.

In the digital era, it is imperative that the accounting sector should be embracing AI & Automation on a larger scale. This would enable analysing large data sets quickly, identifying patterns, and even predicting future trends. This would reduce the risk of human error and would enable accounting professionals to focus on more strategic aspects of finance. There is an increasing complexity of financial operations, and therefore, there is a need for cost-effective solutions. CAs must develop specialised expertise with scalable solutions to meet the expectations of the growing Indian business community with global outreach. It would be prudent to shift towards cloud-based solutions as they allow for real-time data access and collaboration, irrespective of location. Besides, it offers enhanced data security and disaster recovery options.

Future Outlook of the Profession

For several decades, the CA profession had confined itself within the conventional areas of practice such as assurance function, tax advisory, and traditional consultancy services. But there are newer areas such as business support services, KPO, forensic audit, risk-based audit and assessment, digital transformation services, internal financial controls audit, systems integration and Cyber Security services, AML compliance, and Resolution Professional (RP) under NCLT. CA professionals can take the lead in guiding corporates on Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) compliance in tune with the SEBI regulations and gain expertise in ESG audit and reporting. In addition to all these, even in the conventional consultancy arena, the CA profession can focus on services related to mergers and acquisitions, restructuring of businesses, wealth management, succession planning in family-owned businesses, investment advisory, and funding & capital mobilisation, which are gaining significance.

Conclusion

There is no other regulated profession that can claim as much proximity as the CA profession to the economic growth of India. CA professionals should participate, partake, and partner in nation-building with utmost dedication and commitment. As envisioned by the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, the next Big 4 firms should be Indian Accounting Firms. Even the 'International Networking of Firms' should originate from India and spread across the globe. The CA profession should make the flag of ICAI fly high in the esteem of the Government, Regulators, and all the other stakeholders by the high quality of services rendered and unblemished standards of ethics practised. Let us contribute our best to translate the dream of Viksit Bharat into a reality over the next two decades.