In February 2011, The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (‘MCA’) issued a press release stating that 35 Indian Accounting Standards (‘Ind AS’) are being notified and placed on the MCA website. With this, the results of India’s current efforts of convergence to IFRS are known and the final new standards are available for reference, although their effective date is to be notified by the MCA at a later date, after various issues (including tax related issues) are resolved within various departments of the government.

This publication ^{(pdf, 12.7MB)} summarises the significant differences between Ind AS and IFRS as at the date of publication, and provides an indication of which GAAP differences are avoidable if the preparer so wishes. Nevertheless, if a company’s goal is to minimise differences from IFRS, and is therefore willing to forego some of the relaxations conferred by Ind AS relative to IFRS, the careful selection of policies and options may enable companies except certain sectors like real estate, to eliminate many differences.