Key findings of a study by Prime Academy analyses the profession

Six audit firms in India grossed a fee earning of over Rs 10 crore. The highest fee paid was Rs 7.95 crore. And only 21 companies paid their auditors more than Rs 1 crore.

These are some of the key findings of a study brought out by Prime Academy, Chennai. `Who are India's top auditors... and, how much do they charge,' is the title of the report, billed as `India's first' on the profession.

Not a summation of the entire population, but of 1,394 companies, adding to "731 audit firms, Rs 1,141 thousand crore turnover, and Rs 208 crore audit fees."

Though the selection accounts for only 28 per cent of the 5,000 listed companies, all the Sens*x and Nifty companies are included, explains the report.

Author Mr V. Pattabhi Ram informs that the trigger for the book, codenamed `Project November,' was that there was no definitive answer to the question - Who are the country's top auditors?

Neither the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India nor the Ministry of Company Affairs publishes any such statistics.As a percentage of turnover, how much is audit fee? Only 0.0182 per cent, says the report, after mining data relating to year ended March 2005 and 2004, from published sources and company Web sites. Though the practice space is dominated by solo and small players, "43 firms each with over 10 partners bagged 31 per cent of the audits and 62 per cent of the fees."