Infosys, TechM CEOs Earn Upto 618-Times More Than Avg Employee! Pay Gap Highest In This Firm

You will be amazed to know the huge wage gap between top management and permanent employees in the well known Nifty-50 companies.

Wages Gap In Well Know Organizations

According to a new compilation and analysis of corporate filings, the top executives of these organizations earned more than 500 times the median salary of their company’s permanent employees in FY’20.

Here ‘Median Salary’ means that half the employees in the organization make less than that amount, while the other half makes more.

These companies include some of the very well known companies like  Hero Motocorp, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Auto, Hindalco Industries and many more.

Reportedly, Hero Motocorp has the highest pay ratio (top executive remuneration to median remuneration) at 752, out of all the Nifty 50 companies.

In this case, Pawan Munjal, the CEO earned Rs 84.59 crore in FY’20.

On the other hand, the median remuneration of the firm’s employees during the fiscal was limited to Rs 11.25 lakh for the fiscal year.

While the lowest pay ratio is seen at Maruti Suzuki, at 1:39.

Here is a link to the data that shows the pay ratio (in descending order) of the top-paid Key Managerial Personnel (KMP) to median remuneration for 42 private companies in the Nifty 50 list for the financial year ending March 31, 2020. 

This data also shows the total remuneration paid to the top KMP.

Data Availability

According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India rule,  publicly-traded companies need to disclose the remuneration to their top management vis-à-vis other employees. 

These disclosures come under mandated Section 197(12) of the Companies Act, 2013, read with Rule 5(1) of the Companies (Appointment and Remuneration of Managerial Personnel) Rules, 2014.

Here you will notice that the data does not include the details about the government-owned companies in the Nifty 50.

Due to Section 197 of the Companies Act, it does not apply to government undertakings.

What Does The Expert Say? 

The data for FY’20 is compiled by the economists Reetika Khera and Meghna Yadav.

According to them, “the percentage increase in remuneration for the top-paid executive was higher than the percentage increase in median employee remuneration for 15 companies over a period of time”.

They pointed “If one compares the percentage increase in the remuneration of the top paid executive, with the percentage increase in median remuneration, we find that out of 37 companies where data was available, the increase in median remuneration was lower for 15 companies and higher for 21 companies,”.

Further, they said, “There is one woman – Vibha Padalkar – in this list. There do not appear to be any Dalits or STs, and there is (at least) one Muslim”.

Apart from that they also noted that the data is not available in the annual report for Reliance Industries.