Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani drew no salary from his flagship firm Reliance Industries Ltd in the fiscal year ended March 31 as he voluntarily gave up remuneration in light of the pandemic hitting the business and the economy.
In its latest annual report, Reliance said Mr. Ambani's remuneration for financial year 2020-21 was "nil." In the previous fiscal year, he drew a ₹ 15 crore salary from the company - the same as in the previous 11 years.
Mr. Ambani has kept salary, perquisites, allowances and commission together at ₹ 15 crore since 2008-09, forgoing over ₹ 24 crore per annum.
"In light of the COVID-19 outbreak in India, which has exacted a huge toll on the societal, economic and industrial health of the nation, Mukesh D. Ambani, the Chairman and Managing Director, has voluntarily decided to forego his salary," the company had said in June last year.
Remuneration of his cousins Nikhil and Hital Meswani remained unchanged at ₹ 24 crore but this time it included ₹ 17.28 crore commission.
Executive Directors P.M.S. Prasad and Pawan Kumar Kapil saw their remuneration go up after they got performance-linked incentives for two years.
While Mr. Prasad drew ₹ 11.99 crore in 2020-21, up from ₹ 11.15 crore in the previous year, Mr. Kapil got ₹ 4.24 crore as against ₹ 4.04 crore in 2019-20.
The payment of Mr. Prasad and Mr. Kapil included "performance-linked incentives for FY 2019-20 and FY 2020-21," the annual report said.
Mr. Ambani's wife Nita, a non-executive director on the company's board, earned ₹ 8 lakh sitting fee and another ₹ 1.65 crore commission for the year.
Apart from Mr. Ambani, the RIL board has Meswani brothers, Mr. Prasad and Mr. Kapil as wholetime directors.
Besides Nita Ambani, other non-executive directors include Yogendra P. Trivedi, Dipak C. Jain, Raghunath A. Mashelkar, Adil Zainulbhai, Raminder Singh Gujral, Shumeet Banerji, former SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya and former CVC K.V. Chowdary.
All independent directors got a ₹ 1.65 crore commission for the year besides a sitting fee of up to ₹ 36 lakh.
