CSR role may see 300% rise in salaries of PSU chiefs

Pay packet of a PSU (public sector undertaking) head can vary up to 300 per cent depending on the performance in hitherto neglected areas of corporate social responsibility, R&D and sustainable development from this year, a top official has said.

On the performance appraisal scale of 100, the three key areas will account for 15 out of the 50 marks allocated to non-financial parameters, according to the guidelines of the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE).

According to DPE Secretary Bhaskar Chatterjee, the 15 marks will make a difference of “Heaven and Earth” in the Performance Related Pay (PRP) structure for the top management of 213 functional PSUs.

“We have introduced the PRP system under which you take home your basic salary. But if you perform well (on all counts including R&D, CSR and sustainable development) you get 100 per cent more; if you perform very good, you get 200 per cent more and if you perform outstanding, you will get 300 per cent more,” Chatterjee said.

Each of these parameters have a weight of five marks in the performance appraisal of the central government-owned companies.

Asked what difference it would make to the salary of a PSU head, whose company has not done well in the areas which have so far been neglected or at best were limited to organising the blood donation camps, Chatterjee said, “Then, you get your normal basic salary.”

But the take home would vary on performance. Under the CSR guidelines which have become mandatory from the current financial year, a PSU with a net profit of less than 100 crore will have to spend 3-5 per cent of it on the CSR.