HYDERABAD, Sept 16: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) Centre of Excellence at Uppal here today.
The Centre was established with the idea of providing learning, research and consultancy to the corporate sector. It would also help Indian corporate sector to capture the best global practices in the corporate management, corporate disclosures and setting the benchmarks for high quality corporate governance.
Speaking on the on the occasion, Mr Naidu congratulated ICSI for setting up of the mega facility of knowledge and research in Hyderabad. He urged to make the Centre of Excellence, Hyderabad a hub of research, support, guidance and training that can contribute towards efforts of nation building.
As the nation progresses towards ‘New India’, professional Institutes like ICSI need to take on a new role in the development of skills, technology and manage its adoption to deal effectively with a rapidly evolving business environment, he added.
In his welcome address, ICSI President CS (Dr) Shyam Agrawal said that the Centre of Excellence, Hyderabad should undertake highly innovative and potentially transformational research that aims to achieve international standing in the fields of corporate governance and leads to a significant advancement of capabilities and knowledge.
“It will act as a link for existing Indian research strengths and build critical mass with new capacity for inter-disciplinary, collaborative approaches to address the most challenging and significant research problems”, he said and added that the Centre of Excellence would collaborate with the country’s top graded professional management institutes and Law universities and enlist the support of the Central and concerned State Governments, World Bank, IDA, OECD, IMF, ADB, Commonwealth Secretariat, UNCTAD, and premier management universities of the world.
Telangana Deputy Chief Minister (Revenue) Md Mohamood Ali was also present on the occasion.
Mr Naidu said in the wake of globalization and the increasing role of corporates in driving the economies, it has become imperative for professionals like company secretaries to acquire cutting-edge knowledge and skills that were not only in tune with the best practices but also facilitate and promote good corporate governance.
Apart from setting the benchmark for high standards in corporate governance, such centres should accord high priority to research and innovative practices, he said.
He said money laundering through shell companies was one of the menaces that affect the economy of a country.” I commend the decision of ICSI to sensitize all its members and other stakeholders on the deleterious impact not only of the shell companies but also of shell NGOs”.
The Vice President also appreciated the efforts of ICSI in bringing secretarial standards on to statute books and paving the way for good corporate practices. Such standards were needed in the wake of corporate disputes.
” A company secretary is not only the conscience-keeper of an enterprise, but he/ she also has a larger social responsibility. No doubt, Company Secretaries are key managerial personnel, but they also represent internal and external stakeholders and as such play a pivotal role in ensuring compliances and implementing principles of good governance.
They have to constantly update themselves with the changes in the laws for proper guidance of the management and other stakeholders. With the implementation of GST, they should be well equipped to deal with the challenges arising from its implementation”, Mr Naidu added. (UNI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel