Indian top executives' salaries doubled

Silicon India

Bangalore: Although the economic slowdown has hit Indian companies and there has been a cut in jobs and salaries of employees, the top management of many companies seems to be unaffected. In fact, the average payout of top management has nearly doubled in the last fiscal. The average pay of top Management Executives and board members rose to nearly two lakh rupees a month during 2008-09 from about one lakh rupees during the previous fiscal.

According to the analysis of top Management payouts, the annual salaries which were in excess of one crore rupees have doubled. During 2008-09, one in every three companies paid more than one crore rupees to one or more of its top Management Executives or Directors. This was a bit of surprise specially when there have been dips in profit of many companies.

So far 285 companies have disclosed their fiscal annual report along with the salaries for their top Executives or Directors. Out of these 285 companies, 76 companies have paid salary of more than one crore rupees to one or more of its top Executives. In the previous fiscal, 333 companies out of 2,400 companies had paid a salary of more than one crore rupees. This is expected to grow because a few large-cap companies have disclosed the information so far.

The average payout for all the top-management executives and directors at Indian companies, including those having been paid less than one crore rupees, rose to about 47 lakh rupees from close to 24 lakh rupees in the previous fiscal. This results in the average monthly payout doubling from about one lakh to two lakh rupees.