Basic pay of ICICI Bank bosses raised

RBI-mandated bonus cut won't pinch.

ICICI Bank has raised the basic pay-scale of its wholetime directors so as to adhere to a Reserve Bank of India norm announced last year.

ICICI Bank's Managing Director and CEO KV Kamath's basic pay has been revised to Rs 6,00,000-10,50,000 a month. In 2003-04, Kamath earned a basic salary of Rs 6.20 lakh a month, up from Rs 4 lakh a month in 2002-03.

Similarly, the basic salary of Joint Managing Director Lalita D Gupte has been revised to Rs 4,00,000-9,00,000 a month. Gupte's salary was revised from Rs 3 lakh a month in 2002-03 to Rs 4.65 lakh a month last year.

ICICI Bank Deputy Managing Director Kalpana Morparia is now in the Rs 3,00,000-9,00,000 a month pay-scale, up from a basic pay of Rs 3.35 lakh a month last year, and from Rs 2.10 lakh in the previous year.

Two executive directors, Chanda D Kochhar and Nachiket Mor, have been put in the revised pay-scale of Rs 2,00,000-5,00,000 a month. Last year, their basic pay was Rs 2.75 lakh a month, up from Rs 1.75 lakh in 2002-2003.

The bank is now seeking shareholder approval to revise the salary structure of its wholetime directors for 2004-2005, at its 10th annual general meeting on September 20.

The revised pay-scales have been designed to ensure that top executives do not lose money, now that their annual performance bonuses have been cut to give effect to Reserve Bank of India guidelines.

The quantum of bonus will go down from 100 per cent of the annual salary to the average percentage of performance bonus paid to all employees of new-generation private banks.

The RBI guidelines on performance bonus to directors do not allow any bank to offer bonus to a wholetime director that equals his or her salary.

The re-alignment has been done to maintain the basic compensation structure for the wholetime directors.

Despite this, however, the annual income of directors might come down a bit following the downward revision in bonus, said an ICICI Bank insider.