Richest Indian, Mukesh Ambani, drew no salary from his flagship firm Reliance Industries Ltd in the fiscal year in March 31 as he voluntarily gave up remunerations in light of the pandemic hitting the business and economy. In its latest annual report, Reliance said Ambani’s remuneration for financially 2020-21 was nil.
In the previous fiscal year, he drew a rupees 15 crore salary from the company-the same as in the previous 11 years. Ambani has kept salary, perquisites, allowances and commissions together at Rs. 15 crores since 2008-9, foregoing over rupees 24 crore per annum.
“In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic 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 said.
Remuneration of his cousins Nikhil and Hital Meswani remained unchanged at Rs. 24 Crores but this time it included Rs. 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. Prasad drew Rs. 11.99 crore in 2020-21, up from Rs. 11.15 crore in the previous year, Kapil got Rs. 4.24 instead of Rs. 4.04 crore in 2019-20.
The payment of Prasad and Kapil included performance linked incentives for financial year 2019 to 2020 and financial year 2020 to 2021, according to the annual report. Ambani's wife Nita Ambani, other non executive directors include Yogendra P Trivedi, Dipak C Jain, Raghunath A Mashelkar, Adil Zainulbhai, Raminder Singh Gujral, Shumeet Banarji, former SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya and former CVC K V Chowdary.
All independent directors got Rs. 1.65 crore commission for the year besides a sitting fee of up to Rs. 36 lakhs.
