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Our Bureau

Kolkata , May 28

THE Department of Company Affairs (DCA), as per the DCA-21 guideline (pertaining to online service to clients), intends to switch over fully to online registration by June 2005.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the sixth national conference of practicing company secretaries here, Mr L.M. Gupta, Regional Director, Department of Company Affairs (DCA), Government of India, urged the practising company secretaries to be adequately prepared for this, and also develop their core competence skills for "managing excellence in a competitive environment", incidentally the theme of the two-day meet.

Mr Gupta said the eastern region office of DCA would be the first to adopt online registration in full, where the Registrar of Companies would gradually switch over to a built-in online registration and placement system for companies, paving the way for a true paperless office by June 2005.

He sought the help of ICSI's regional office to help train DCA officers in such online registration through a joint programme. In the same breath, he suggested that the company secretaries too should be trained in procedures on how to register companies online.

He also welcomed the session on mock training for company secretaries on how to appear before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), if and when it comes into being.

Talking to Business Line at the sidelines of the conference, after the inaugural session, Mr Mahesh Anant Athavale, President of ICSI, said the institute had now taken up a new programme to "spread its wings", which includes proposed interactive sessions with trade counsellors/commissioners of foreign embassies situated in New Delhi and proposed meeting of representatives of the Institute of Company Secretaries in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kenya in July.

He said as part of the new programme taken up to introduce ICSI of India to the larger universe in a big way, and also to equip members to render effective service to corporates in different countries, and their subsidiaries and joint ventures in India, the institute was preparing country-specific booklets covering areas such as economy, capital markets, intellectual property laws, industrial licensing, labour laws and visa requirements. He informed that a booklet on Thailand was now in final stages of preparation, and would be published shortly.

Among the new initiatives of the institute, according to Mr Athavale, are extensive professional development programmes, brand building, extensive research projects, reorganisation and infrastructure development, study of the future role of company secretaries and globalisation of the profession. He stressed on the need for an International Federation of Company Secretaries Institutes (IFCSI) for developing the profession internationally.

The institute has already created a Centre for Corporate Research and Training (CCRT) within ICSI in Mumbai to help inculcate best practices among members of the profession. Stressing on the growing importance of secretarial audit, he said this would create awareness among companies to comply with various legal provisions.

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