India badly needs bankruptcy experts — and this course could be your ticket to a hot, new career

• The Indian government is launching an academic course — the Graduate Insolvency Program — to train a crop of new insolvency professionals.
  
• India’s stressed bank assets rose to $146 billion recently.
  
• The 27-month program is likely to benefit insolvency professionals. It will help them handle tough bankruptcy cases within a short time.

India has a huge, emerging sector for helping distressed and bankrupt companies come out of financial difficulty. But it faces a huge shortage of bankruptcy professionals who can oversee the process.

To make up for the lack, the Indian government is reportedly launching a fresh academic course — Graduate Insolvency Program — which will help train a new crop of insolvency professionals.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) will likely launch the program in first week of February. It will allow fresh candidates to take up Insolvency profession while presently hirings happen from the lot having at least 10-15 years of experience. The 27- month program aims to train nearly 45 such professionals annually.

India introduced a new bankruptcy law, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), two years ago — which was seen as a landmark law to help several banks resolve a huge pile of bad debt from under-performing or stressed companies. The new rules gave recourse to both the company’s promoters and creditors.

How will the course benefit insolvency professionals?

As of 2017, the country had nearly 600-700 insolvency professionals, according to Mamta Binani, former president of Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

While according to a senior official from ICAI, certified training programs have the capacity to create thousands of job opportunities. That is because, India’s National Company Law Tribunals have been flooded with hundreds of such cases that will need insolvency professionals for primary operations.

Who will be eligible?

The graduate insolvency program will be outsourced from prominent Indian institutions, and operate in sync with regulators. It will admit candidates from varied backgrounds from chartered accountants, post graduates in economics, finance, management, commerce, cost accountants, company secretaries and law graduates.

However, there will be a minimum bar to qualify the elimination exam, just as for the Common Admission Test (CAT). Foreign nationals will also be eligible to take up the course — along with a reservation quota of five seats.

The Indian government hopes the course will be added help for professionals already working on bankruptcy to solve the cases more efficiently. It will also give the professionals domestic and international exposure in the field through internships.

The overall cost for the graduate program is yet to be declared. However, it is expected to cost between ₹700,000 to ₹1,000,000.

India has tried to groom insolvency professionals earlier as well. Last year, the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) jointly announced a training program for ‘Insolvency Associates’ to create more jobs in the sector.

Rolled out under the Pradhan Mantri Kushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), the 250-hour course focused on insolvency issues including Companies Act, accounting and valuation.

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