ICWAI will now be ICMAI

The government on Thursday said cost accounting body ICWAI can change its name to Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of India.

"We have in-principle allowed ICWAI to change its name to Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of India (ICMAI). Some statutory changes will be required. We are working on it. Hopefully in the near future it will be done," Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.

Set up in 1959 through an Act of Parliament, ICWAI has over 47,000 members and two lakh students. It has been requesting for the change of name for long.

Khurshid said cost accountants would no longer need to feel like the "younger cousins" of chartered accountants, as in times to come, cost accountants would have a larger role to play in the corporate world.

"We are not just cost accountants, helping companies keep record of things, we assist them to manage costs. We also analyse how well resources are utilise in the process of producing something. So our role is much bigger," ICWAI president G N Venkatraman said.

The world over, he said, cost and works practitioners are known as cost management accountants.

Cost accounting bodies world-over use the term cost management to represent them, including in countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, he added.