Women catching up fast in Chartered Accountancy

New Delhi, Sep 3 (UNI) After outsmarting men in various fields, women are now catching up fast in the field of Chartered Accountancy, with their increasing number of enrolment in the so-called hard-to-crack course.

The membership figures released by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) show the growing ambitions of the fair sex.

The statistics reveal that a decade ago, in April 1995, the percentage of women members stood at a mere 5.2 per cent, which has exponentially increased during the period and stands at an impressive 13.1 per cent as on April 2006.

During 2000-06, 9,661 women registered themselves for the course as compared to 6675 in 1990-99, a growth of 44.73 per cent.

However, in contrast, 15.39 per cent downfall was noticed in the number of male CAs as their figure decreased from 38,017 to 32,165 during the same period.

The report in ICAI journal also shows that women are competing with men shoulder-to-shoulder across all regions of the country.

The number of female CA Associates are 6,272 in the western region, 3,139 in Southern region, while 1,060 and 2338 in Eastern and Northern regions respectively.

The Central zone accounts for 1,374 female associates.

Some of them also practice chartered accountancy abroad, it says.

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