 The
Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is launching ICAI Universe,
the first phase of a Virtual Institute Project (VIP) in Chennai on November 22,
2003, with a view to rendering the Institute's services online.
ICAI president R Bupathy said
in Chennai that it would be inaugurated at the Institute premises on Mahatma
Gandhi Road in Nungambakkam by Tamil Nadu government IT secretary Vivek
Harinarain.
The implementation of the
project will be in three stages. In the first phase, an unified centralised
system would bring together all the regional offices, regional councils and
branches of the Institute online. The concept of the first phase would be
similar to that of a centralised banking system.
In the second phase, a fully
integrated Intelligent Interactive Enterprise Virtual Institute System would be
introduced to bring about a paradigm shift in the functioning of the Institute
by way of providing information to members, students, officials and others at
their doorstep. This would be similar to the Anywhere Banking concept, Bupathy
said.
 It
would would lead to an 'anytime Institute' with 24 x 7 x 365 services and enable
the Institute to go in for a paperless office with concepts of Electronic Filing
and Digital Signatures, online and mandated payment facilities to members and
students. In the third phase, the support functions of the Institute would be
computerised, leading to total computerisation.
Bupathy said the project was
the first-of-its kind in the academic arena in the country. It would bring
together the operations of all the five Decentralised Offices of the Institute,
the Head Office at New Delhi, five major branches and the 93 other branches into
an unified centralised system, said Joint Secretary K Venkataramana.
"The
infrastructure proposes to bring all operational functions of the Institute onto
a common intranet with seamless flow of information, provide an online channel
to the students, members and firms to interact with the Institute", he
added.
A member under the new system
could pay his fees within ten minutes while the entire process now took ten
days. It was also a matter of convenience, Bupathy said. The Institute would
also provide for a 'knowledge and meeting management site', deputy secretary A
Irudayam said. The plan could be implemented in three phases within three years.
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