Mukesh Ambani draws pay of Rs 15 crore for ninth year consecutively

New Delhi, Jun 28 Reliance Industries boss
Mukesh Ambani kept his annual salary capped at Rs 15 crore for the ninth year in row and did not take any stock option even as the compensation of most official executives on the board rose.

Ambani, the richest Indian, has kept salary, perquisites and remittances and commission at Rs 15 crore since 2008-09, doing without nearly Rs 24 crore per annum.

"The chairman and managing director's remuneration has been set at Rs 15 crore as against Rs 38.75 crore as approved, reflecting his desire to keep on setting an individual case for balance in administrative pay levels," RIL said in its yearly report for 2016-17.

His compensation for 2016-17 included Rs 4.16 crore as pay and another Rs 60 lakh by method for perquisites and stipends. He got retirement advantages of Rs 71 lakh and Rs 9.53 crore as commission on benefit.

The base salary, allowances, retirement benefits and commission on profit are the same as what he got in 2015-16.

Ambani intentionally topped his pay at Rs 15 crore in October 2009 in the midst of a verbal confrontation over right-estimating of CEO compensations.

The pay top proceeded even as all other executive directors saw their remunerations go up.

Ambani's cousins Nikhil R Meswani and Hital R Meswani saw their pay ascend to Rs 16.58 crore each. They had earned Rs 14.42 crore and Rs 14.41 crore, individually, in the previous year. In 2014-15, they had got Rs 12.03 crore each.

Additionally, one of his key officials, Executive Director P M S Prasad saw his compensation go up to Rs 7.87 crore in 2016-17, from Rs 7.23 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 6.03 crore in 2014-15.

Refinery chief Pawan Kumar Kapil, in any case, saw his pay drop to Rs 2.54 crore, from Rs 2.94 crore in 2015 - 16. He had earned Rs 2.41 crore in 2014-15.

RIL's non-executive directors, including Nita Ambani, additionally got Rs 1.2 crore each as commission, other than sitting expenses.

Additionally, Nikhil and Hital got stock options worth Rs 64.18 crore each, as indicated by the yearly report. Prasad got stock options of Rs 45 crore and Kapil got Rs 1 crore in investment opportunities.

Ambani's wife Nita Ambani, a non-executive director on the company's board, earned Rs 4 lakh sitting fee and a commission of Rs 1.35 crore. The sitting charge was lower than Rs 6 lakh she earned in the earlier year, yet the commission was higher than Rs 1.20 crore in 2015-16.

Aside from Ambani, the RIL load up has Meswani siblings, Prasad and Kapil as wholetime chiefs.

Other than Nita Ambani, other non-executive directors include Dharam Vir Kapur, Dipak C Jain, Mansingh L Bhakta, Yogendra P Trivedi, Raminder Singh Gujral, Ashok Misra, Raghunath A Mashelkar and Adil Zainulbhai.