K M Birla's salary from Idea reduced to Rs 3.30 lakh

Mumbai: Kumar Mangalam Birla's salary from Idea Cellular saw a mammoth decrease in 2016-17 as compared to what he earned last year, according to a report in The Economic Times.

Birla took a meagre remuneration mainly due to telecom operator reporting its first ever loss in its quarterly profit. Birla took home Rs 13.15 crore in the fiscal year ended March 2016, company's annual report showed.

"Aditya Birla Group company didn’t pay any commission to the chairman or other non-executive directors for the year, which was also the first when it reported a drop in revenue since its IPO a decade ago," ET report said.

Past two quarters have been quite tough for Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel due to arrival of Reliance Jio on the landscape of India's telecom market. Idea reported a Rs 404 crore loss with revenue falling 0.8 per cent to Rs 35,883 crore on a consolidated basis.

The stiff competition and large revenue loss forced Idea and Vodafone to merge their entities that will make India's largest telecom operator. Though, the contours of merger deal have still not been finalised.

Salary of Sanjeev Aga, who is a non-executive director, fell to Rs 5.90 lakh from Rs 16.7 lakh that too in the absence of commissions. However, those in the leadership team took home higher salaries, the report said.