Sanjiv Puri, the chairman and managing director of fast-moving consumer goods giant ITC, earned 401 times more than the median salary of his employees in the year ended March 2024.

What Happened: ITC released its annual report on Friday, ahead of its annual general meeting scheduled for July 26. The filing showed that Puri drew a gross remuneration of ₹28.62 crore in the year 2023-24, which was a jump of more than 50% in his salary from a year ago.

Puri took home over ₹3 crore in basic salary in the year, in addition to other incentives and bonuses. He was also awarded more than 1 lakh stock options. 

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61-year-old Puri first joined ITC in 1986 and was promoted to the CEO of the firm In 2017. He took over as the conglomerate’s chairman in 2019. 

Executive Director Sumant Bhargavan was the next highest-paid official in the company. He was paid a gross salary of ₹13.60 crore, which was 191 times higher than the median remuneration paid to ITC employees in the period. 

“Remuneration of KMPs (key managerial personnel) increased by 59% due to payment of long-term incentives during the year and also due to increase in the number of Executive Directors for an interim period," the company said in the filing.

It added that compared to the financial year 2022-23, median remuneration of employees increased by 5% in the 2023-24 period, whereas average remuneration rose by 10%.

Price Action: ITC shares were down 0.12% at ₹425.10 on Friday afternoon.

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