India Inc's top executives took deeper pay cuts to tackle COVID-19 crisis: Report

The outbreak of coronavirus pandemic and resultant disruptions have impacted remuneration of senior management of India's largest firms. Companies have reduced salaries of top management to cut expenses.

As per a report by Mint, median salaries of top executives in 28 companies in Nifty declined by 5.56 percent. The same was up by 4.81 percent last year.

The analysis took into consideration the highest remuneration paid by the company, irrespective of the designation. The data also adds stock options to the total compensation figure wherever it is available, the report stated.

The COVID-induced nationwide lockdown hit sales of profitability of companies. To reduce costs, firms used a slew of measures, including pay cuts, leave without pay, retrenchment and a hiring freeze.

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While Larsen and Toubro MD SN Subrahmanyan and JSW Steel Chairman Sajjan Jindal took the highest pay cut between 43 and 44 percent, top earners in companies such as Cipla, Tata Consultancy Services, Titan Company, Kotak Mahindra Bank also received reduced pay in FY20, the report said.

HDFC Bank CEO Aditya Puri emerged as the highest-paid CEO in India for FY20. According to the latest annual report released by the bank, his annual salary and other prerequisites rose 38 percent to Rs 18.92 crore when compared to the preceding fiscal.

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In addition to Puri, Bajaj Finance MD Rajeev Jain, Infosys MD Salil Parekh, Tech Mahindra MD CP Gurnani and Bajaj Finserv MD Sanjiv Bajaj received 28 percent -44 percent hike in their remuneration, the report stated.

As per the Deloitte's report titled '2020 Workforce and Increment Trends' released in August, the projected average salary increment in India has dropped by 40 bps compared to actual salary increment in 2019.

"Increments are higher at mid/junior levels compared to top/senior management," the survey said.

The survey by leading consultancy Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP showed that timing and potential impact of COVID-19 were the two most important factors that affected increments in 2020-21.

"Organisations that had already decided their increments before the start of the lockdown in March 2020 have given a higher increment compared with others. Moreover, organisations expecting a decline of more than 20 percent in revenue in FY 2020-21 due to COVID-19 have given much lower increments," the survey said.