Premji Takes Pay Cut; CEO Kurien Gets 5-Fold Hike

While the chairman's pay fell from . 2.8 cr in FY11 to . 1.9 cr in FY12, Kurien's pay grew to . 4.5 crore from . 80 lakh

IT giant Wipro's chairman and managing director Azim Premji saw his remuneration falling by nearly onethird to . 1.9 crore last fiscal, but the group's IT business CEO TK Kurien's pay package grew over five times to . 4.5 crore. As CMD of Wipro, whose main area of business is information technology but is also present in certain consumer goods businesses, Premji's annual remuneration declined from . 2.8 crore in the fiscal 2010-11 to . 1.9 crore in the latest fiscal ended March 31, 2012. 
During the same period, the total remuneration rose from . 80 lakh to . 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 . 10.2 crore (up from . 3.1 crore in the previous year), while Paranjape's remuneration stood at . 8.9 crore that year (up from . 2 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 . 1.8 crore in 2011-12, from . 4.3 crore in the previous fiscal. The total remuneration paid to all the key management personnel of the company fell to . 8.7 crore in 2011-12, from . 27.5 crore in the previous year. However, Wipro's total employee wage bill, including salaries, bonuses and other staff payments, rose to . 15,400 crore from . 12,700 crore. 
Premji's remuneration had fallen even more sharply in 2010-11, as his pay package had dipped by nearly two-thirds from . 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 . 50 lakh in 2010-11 (up from . 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 . 28 crore, while Azim Premji holds more than 9.3 crore shares (worth . 3,700 crore) in his name. Azim Premji's pay package in 2011-12 included . 30 lakh as salary, . 13.1 lakh in allowances, about . 1.1 crore as commissions/incentives, nearly . 16 lakh as other annual compensation and . 26 lakh in deferred benefits. Wipro said that "the remuneration paid to chairman and MD and other executive directors is determined keeping in view the industry benchmark."

Azim Premji with T K Kurien