Wipro's Premji takes pay cut; CEO Kurien gets 5-times hike

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.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, the total remuneration rose from Rs 80 lakh to Rs 4.5 crore for Kurien, who assumed the role of Wipro's IT business CEO in February 2011.


However, the remuneration paid to Kurien's predecessors -- Suresh Vaswani and Girish S Paranjape, who were joint CEOs of Wipro's IT business till January 2011 -- was much higher.

During 2010-11, Vaswani was paid Rs 10.2 crore (up from Rs 3.1 crore in the previous year), while Paranjape's remuneration stood at Rs 8.9 crore that year (up from Rs two crore in 2009-10).

Along with Premji, Wipro's Chief Financial Officer Suresh Senapaty also saw his pay package take a dip in the fiscal 2011-12, shows the company's latest annual report being sent to the shareholders ahead of their AGM later this month. Senapaty's remuneration fell to Rs 1.8 crore in 2011-12, from Rs 4.3 crore in the previous fiscal.

The total remuneration paid to all 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, Wipro's total employee wage bill, including salaries, bonuses and other staff payments, rose to Rs 15,400 crore from Rs 12,700 crore.

Premji's remuneration had fallen even more sharply in 2010-11, as his pay package had dipped by nearly two-third from Rs 8.1 crore in the year 2009-10.

The group chief Azim Premji's son Rishad Premji, 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 annual report for 2011-12 does not mention his salary for the year.

As per the annual report, Rishad holds about 6.87 lakh Wipro shares (worth about Rs 28 crore currently, while Azim Premji holds more than 9.3 crore shares (worth Rs 3,700 crore) in his name.

Azim Premji's pay package in 2011-12 included Rs 30 lakh as salary, Rs 13.1 lakh in allowances, about Rs 1.1 crore as commissions/incentives, nearly Rs 16 lakh as other annual compensation and Rs 26 lakh in deferred benefits.

Wipro said that "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.

"Perquisites and retirement benefits are paid according to the company policy as applicable to all employees."

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