New Delhi, Sept. 30: 

A crucial meeting of the CA Institute's central council is slated for October 15-17 to discuss among other things the implementation date of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

India has been looking to converge with IFRS, but has dithered in taking a call on its implementation date.

The Government was initially looking to implement IFRS from April 1, 2011, but later postponed its implementation for various reasons.

Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily has been talking in public forums that IFRS would be a reality in India from April 1, 2013.

But now there is some speculation that implementation date may get postponed to "not later than April 1, 2014". At the upcoming central council meeting, the level of preparedness for IFRS convergence will be reviewed, said Jaydeep Shah, CA Institute President.

He declined to comment on whether its implementation date was likely to be postponed yet again. It would be premature to come to any such conclusion at this stage, he said.

Shah said the CA Institute's Accounting Standards Board Chairman Manoj Fadnis will make a presentation to the Central Council in the upcoming meeting and after that only a final call would be taken by the institute. There have been several reasons including the aspect of taxation that had come in the way of IFRS convergence.

The CA institute had already developed a set of Accounting Standards (Ind AS) that are converged with IFRS. But the implementation date has not been notified by the Corporate Affairs Ministry. The Government has now come around to a view that IFRS could be pursued even without the taxation issues getting sorted out, it is learnt.

srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in