Inspiring Story of Dilip Loyalka - India's first visually impaired Chartered Accountant

Inspiring Story of Dilip Loyalka - India's first visually impaired Chartered Accountant

CA. Dilip Loyalka, F.C.A., L.L.B. has demonstrated that spirit of unflinching determination can achieve the unthinkable. He cherishes the rarest of the rare achievements to his credit by being the first person in India and perhaps the globe, to qualify as a Chartered Accountant in spite of his visual impairment in 1983. He joined his father CA. Jugal Kishore Loyalka in his firm J. Loyalka & Co., Kolkata and is the Senior Partner and is actively involved in the profession even today.

In 2002, the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, presented him with the Best Professional Handicapped Person award. In 2000, the Rotary Club of Calcutta Inner City conferred on him the Paul Harris title for his contribution to the cause of blind welfare. He has many such laurels to his credit.

He is the author of the book "How to Handle Income Tax Problems", "Income Tax Practice and Pleading", “Practical Guide to V.D.I.S.”, “Kaise Suljhaye Aayker Samasyaye”, etc.

Dilip Loyalka’s clients describe him by the first five letters of his surname and never doubt the 54-year-old vision impaired chartered accountant’s bookkeeping skills.

He has been successfully running central Calcutta-based J. Loyalka and Company, an heirloom he inherited from his father, for the past 24 years with three CAs working under his supervision and about a dozen students training under him. An expert on income tax cases, his firm audits the accounts of some of Calcutta’s well-known business houses.

“We do the audit of Diamond Beverages, Bengal Beverages and many more,” said his daughter Shreya, a third-generation CA in the family. Her brother Yash, a student in St. Xavier’s College, is studying to be a CA too.

In this family of CAs, Dilip Loyalka stands out. “My parents noticed the problem with my eyesight when I was six months old. They would make all kinds of gestures in front of me, and I won’t react,” he said.

On his first day at Gyan Bharti School in Raniganj, his birthplace, he could barely see the chalked letters on the blackboard. And then, he couldn’t see the blackboard at all one day in Class VI.

When he calmed down after the shock, he promised himself to hone his other faculties. “The eye is only a medium. Everything happens in your brain,” Loyalka said.

Growing up in a family of CAs — his father and uncle were both in this profession— he began to develop a knack for it. The innovations he adopted mirrored his desire to become “a professional”. He would carry a carbon paper and sheets of plain paper to school and slip them under the pages of a friend’s notebook. “I brought the carbon copies home and my parents would read out the notes.”

When he reached Class VII, his father shifted to Calcutta and put his son in Hindi High School (Birla High School).

After completing his first year at Bhowanipore Gujarati Education Society, he sat for the CA entrance examination. His parents hired two BCom students to read aloud books and course material, take notes and mark anything that Loyalka felt necessary.

“They worked in shifts: one from 10am and 6pm while the other would stay overnight to read me textbooks and notes between 6pm to 10pm and again from 6am to 10pm,” he said.

“I passed the chartered accountancy examination (one of the toughest in the country) when I was 23.”

“I am extremely lucky to be born in a wealthy family that could pay for the support system I needed for my education…a rarity for most visually impaired people in the country,” he added.

He joined his father’s firm as an assistant. But in 1989, his father died and the reins of the company fell on 29-year-old Loyalka with his brother-in-law as partner. This arrangement lasted till 2005 when his brother-in-law died too.

Since then, he has been leading the company single-handedly. “When a client visits our office, my father intently listens to him. Then he asks us to read out portions from books that he feels relevant for that case. He frames the arguments on his mind to tell the income tax commissioner. He would spell out his thoughts for trainees or his staff to write down,” Shreya said.

He owns a petrol pump and maintains its accounts without any support staff.

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