Kotak Mahindra Bank's top leadership takes pay cut, Uday Kotak to take Re 1 as salary

In a move aimed at bolstering the government's efforts of tackling the COVID-19 outbreak, Kotak Mahindra Bank on April 9 said the bank's leadership team has opted to take a 15 percent cut in compensation for the financial year 2020-21 while CEO Uday Kotak has personally opted to forego his salary and will take only Re 1 as compensation.

"We are in the midst of a battle to protect both lives and livelihoods. The revival of the economy will depend on a healthy and robust financial sector. The bank is committed to work alongside the government, private enterprise, civil society and individuals in the tough times that lie ahead," the bank said in statement.

This is the first time Kotak Group's top management is taking a salary cut to contribute to a relief work, an official said.

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To support the government’s relief work, on 30th March, Kotak Mahindra Bank contributed Rs 25 crore to the PM Cares Fund and Rs 10 crore to the relief efforts in Maharashtra. Uday Kotak has also made a personal contribution of Rs 25 crore to the PM CARES fund.

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Most public sector banks, including country’s largest lender State Bank of India, have asked their employees to contribute one day's salary to the PM Cares Fund. In SBI's case, this is one day's salary and one  PL encashment.

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"At the request of our employees and their representative federations, it has been decided that an amount of encashment of 1-Day’s Privilege Leave and deduction of 1-day’s Salary of every employee (payable in the month of April 2020) of every staff member will be collected by HRMS Department and contributed to the ‘PM CARES Fund'," according to a circular issued across all branches of SBI. Moneycontrol has reviewed a copy of the circular.

PM CARES Fund is a corpus formed by the central government to use for the Covid-19 relief operations. Several corporate houses and HNIs have contributed to the fund.