IT giant Wipro’s chairman and managing director Azim Premji saw his remuneration falling by nearly one-third to Rs 1.9 crore last fiscal, but the group's IT business CEO T K Kurien's pay package grew over five times to Rs 4.5 crore.
As CMD of Wipro Ltd, whose main area of business is information technology but is also present in certain consumer goods businesses, Premji's annual remuneration declined from Rs 2.8 crore in the fiscal 2010-11 to Rs 1.9 crore in the latest fiscal ended March 31, 2012.During the same period, Kurien’s total remuneration rose from R80 lakh to Rs 4.5 crore, according to the company's latest annual report being sent to the shareholders ahead of their AGM later this month.
Kurien became CEO in February 2011.
Wipro said “the remuneration paid to Chairman and Managing Director and other Executive Directors is determined keeping in view the industry benchmark, the relative performance of the Company to the industry performance, and macro economic review on remuneration packages of CEOs of other organisations.” However, the remuneration of Kurien’s predecessors -— Suresh Vaswani and Girish S Paranjape, who were joint CEOs of Wipro’s IT business till January 2011 — was much higher.
{{/usCountry}}Wipro said “the remuneration paid to Chairman and Managing Director and other Executive Directors is determined keeping in view the industry benchmark, the relative performance of the Company to the industry performance, and macro economic review on remuneration packages of CEOs of other organisations.” However, the remuneration of Kurien’s predecessors -— Suresh Vaswani and Girish S Paranjape, who were joint CEOs of Wipro’s IT business till January 2011 — was much higher.
{{/usCountry}}During 2010-11, Vaswani was paid R10.2 crore (up from R3.1 crore in the previous year), while Paranjape's remuneration was Rs 8.9 crore that year (up from Rs 2.0 crore in 2009-10).
Premji is not alone in taking a cut. Wipro’s chief financial officer Suresh Senapaty also saw his pay package dip to R1.8 crore in 2011-12, from R4.3 crore in the previous fiscal.
Total remuneration paid to the key management personnel of the company fell to Rs 8.7 crore in 2011-12, from Rs 27.5 crore in the previous year. However, the total employee wage bill, including salaries, bonuses and other staff payments, rose to Rs 15,400 crore from Rs 12,700 crore.
Premji's son Rishad, currently the chief strategy officer of IT business, was paid Rs 50 lakh in 2010-11 (up from Rs 40 lakh in the previous year), but the current year salary is not mentioned in the annual report.