Karnataka minister pushes for financial education among farmers

It is pertinent that the common public must be educated about GST and other taxes related issues in agricultural sector. Agriculture is the most neglected sector in India. Only 2.8 lakh CAs are serving in this sector currently and there is a need for more than five lakh CAs in agriculture sector, Venkatrao Nadagouda, Minister for Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Government of Karnataka said.
He also noted the need to educate farmers as they single handedly manage every aspect of farming — from buying the seeds till selling the farm produce in the market. The minister added that the recent push from the government has resulted into educating farmers to manage their finances with the help of CAs. The minister was speaking at ‘Samartha’, 16th Karnataka state-level conference of Chartered Accountants (CAs), organised by the Bangalore branch of Southern India Regional Council (SIRC) of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) in Bengaluru today.
Dayaniwas Sharma, Central Council Member, ICAI, speaking on the occasion, said, Samarth has been taking great initiatives to ensure that the services of CAs is easily available to governments, ministries, corporate and citizens of the country. He said initiatives such as introducing Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN), launch of SSP Portal for the members and students, Digital Accounting and Assurance Board (DAAB), one of the world’s first formal body on the digital accounting and assurance to strengthen the courses of the system and forensics to take it to the next level in world recognition, SAP training to be introduced for members and added that after the successful implementation of GST, the members will be signing the GST audit reports.
Shivram Shankar Bhatt, Chairman, Bengaluru branch of SIRC of ICAI, said that Samartha aims to keep the community updated about happenings in field of Chartered Accountancy. Explaining further, Bhatt said, ICAI is opening up opportunities for CA professionals in India and across the world. The association has been continuously running activities to update and qualified CA professionals to react to the regulatory change, he added. He said that understanding the potential and the pressure from the globalisation, the association is ready to offer its services directly to other countries. He expressed confidence that Bengaluru will soon be considered as one of the CA cities of the world.