India will need around 1 lakh company secretaries by 2030 amid rising economic growth and increasing focus on good governance, according to the company secretaries’ apex body ICSI.

Currently, there are more than 73,000 company secretaries and out of the total, around 12,000 are practising company secretaries.

Company secretaries play a key role in the corporate governance framework in ensuring compliance of companies with various statutory requirements.

Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) President B Narasimhan said there has been a paradigm shift in the way the country’s economy is perceived today and company secretaries have essentially become a significant linchpin in making India one of the most preferred investment destinations of the world.

India will need around 1 lakh company secretaries by 2030, he told PTI during a recent interaction.

On an average, the ICSI gives membership to over 2,500 people every year.

Going by projections, India is expected to become a USD 7 trillion economy by 2030.

“It is eminently possible for the Indian economy to grow in the coming years at a rate above 7 per cent on the strength of the financial sector and other recent and future structural reforms... Under a reasonable set of assumptions with respect to the inflation differentials and the exchange rate, India can aspire to become a USD 7 trillion economy in the next six to seven years (by 2030),” a finance ministry report said in January this year.

Meanwhile, to attract more young talent into the profession, the institute has also started direct registration of graduates and post graduates in the company secretary executive programme.

Among other initiatives, ICSI has introduced secretarial standards to bring uniformity in the secretarial practices followed across corporate boards.