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Sun TV promoters Kalanithi Maran and his wife Kavery were the top paid corporates in India in the last fiscal with a package of Rs 56.25 crore each among the listed companies, replacing Jindal Steel's Naveen Jindal from the pole position.
However, the impact of slowdown on Indian economy was visible on their pay packages as all three of them took some kind of cut in their packages in the last fiscal.
Jindal (at 3rd position with Rs 54.98 crore package) had over 25% cut in his Rs 73.42 crore remuneration of 2011-12, while the Marans took a marginal cut of 1% in their packages.
Interestingly, the top paid list has been dominated by the Marans and Jindal in last four years, who have shared the top spot twice among themselves -- Marans (2009-10 & 2012-13) and Jindal (2010-11 and 2011-12).
Aditya Birla group chairman Kumar Manglam Birla, who was paid Rs 49.62 crore by his five listed firms together, was at the fourth position. Hero MotoCorp's father-son trio, Brijmohan Lall Munjal (Rs 32.72 crore), Pawan Munjal (Rs 32.80 crore) and Sunil Kant Munjal (Rs 31.51 crore), occupy the next three positions in the top 10 highest paid executives list.
The collective pay of the 10 top-paid executives rose by only Rs 15 crore (4%) to Rs 402 crore in the last fiscal, giving a reflection of the downturn in the economy.
The pay packages include salary, perquisites, commissions, profit-linked incentives, sitting fees and other benefits. The data has been taken from the annual reports of the companies that have so far been published.
Ramco Cements' (formerly Madras Cements) P R R Rajha (Rs 30.96 crore) was ranked 8th, followed by Maruti Suzuki's former Managing Director Shinzo Nakanishi (Rs 30.90 crore) and Divi's Labs Murali K Divi (Rs 26.46 crore).
BGR Energy's BG Raghupaty (Rs 13.19 crore) and Tata Motors' former chief Carl-Peter Forster were the two notable omissions from the top 10 list. While Raghupaty's package declined by 50% in last fiscal due to the downturn in the business, Forster had left Tata Motors in 2011.
Interestingly, industry titans like Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Azim Premji, Anand Mahindra and Sunil Mittal does not figure in the top 10 highest paid persons list.
While Mittal (Rs 24.33 crore) is at 11th position, Amara Raja Batteries' Jayadev Galla (Rs 23.48 crore), Larsen and Toubro's A M Naik (Rs 21.06 crore), Hindalco's D Bhattacharya (Rs 20.61 crore) and JSW Steel's Sajjan Jindal (Rs 20.25 crore) occupy the next four slots in top 15 list.
Mukesh Ambani, once the country's highest-paid executive, is at 16th position with a remuneration of Rs 15 crore, which has remained unchanged for the fifth consecutive year now.
There are only six Sensex companies, whose top executives figure among the ten top-paid executives. However, majority of the Sensex companies, considered as top-30 blue chip firms, saw their top executives' packages rise in 2012-13.
