Coal India will spend a whopping Rs 1,000 cr to fund its executives’ long-overdue hike

Coal India will spend a whopping Rs 1,000 cr to fund its executives’ long-overdue hike

PW Bureau

The new salary has merged the dearness allowance, which was 117 percent of the basic pay, and leads to an increase of about 20 percent in gross salary

New Delhi: To bring the salary of its executives at par with state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Coal India will see an additional annual outgo of Rs 800 crore on account of recent salary hikes.

The state-run miner will bear expenses totalling Rs 1,000 crores this year, including a Rs 200 crore arrear component, as it is effective from January 2017. Coal India Limited (CIL) has made a provision of Rs 100 crore per quarter, totalling Rs 400 crore this year.

New salary merges dearness allowance

The pay scale for entry level executives was revised to Rs 40,000-1,40,000 per month from Rs 16,400-40,500. The demand to bring the salaries of executive-level employees at par with ONGC was a long-standing demand for several years.

The new salary has merged the dearness allowance, which was 117 percent of the basic pay, and leads to an increase of about 20 percent in gross salary, a senior executive said.

Pay scales for executives below board level have been raised to Rs 1.5 lakh-3 lakh from Rs 62,000-80,000. The chairman's pay scale has been increased to Rs 2 lakh-3.7 lakh from Rs 80,000-1.25 lakh.

Pay revision had been due since January 2017

A CIL executive said that the pay revision had been due since January 2017 and therefore, some executives were being paid less than some workmen because their salaries are revised every five years. "Salaries of Coal India executives are revised every 10 years and the current revision fell due more than a year ago in January 2017," he said.

"Since salaries are revised every 10 years, pay scales of 'Maharatna' companies were more than that of Coal India executives for a number of grades before the hike. Executives have been asking the management to correct the anomaly and make it on a par with other large PSUs."

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