India’s central bank has released details of employees’ salaries—including that of governor Raghuram Rajan’s, whose tenure ends this September.
Fifty-three-year-old Rajan—who famously predicted the 2008 global financial meltdown a decade ago—earns about Rs1,98,700 ($2,978) a month. This means his gross annual income is around Rs24,00,000 ($35,973).
Every month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) chief earns a basic salary of Rs90,000, dearness allowance of Rs1,01,700 and other income of Rs7,000 as of July 1, 2015, data showed. Additional perks aren’t included in the data.
RBI’s four deputy governors earn Rs1,73,900 a month.
Private vs public
In 2013, Rajan arrived at the RBI after an incredibly successful career.
The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, gold medalist was the youngest chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, where he worked between 2003 and 2006. Then, he served as the chairman (pdf) of the High Level Committee on Financial Sector Reforms in India for a year before serving as an honorary economic advisor to the prime minister of India between 2008 and 2012. In 2012, he was made the chief economic advisor to the Indian government. He moved to the RBI in 2013.
With a penchant for straight-talk, Rajan’s standing has only grown during his time at India’s central bank. In 2016, he was even named The Central Banker of the Year by The Banker magazine.
While his salary may seem incongruent with his stature, public sector remunerations in India seldom match up to those in the private sector.
For instance, most of the heads at India’s private banks are paid in crores, while their counterparts at state-owned banks make a pittance, in comparison. Here are the comparative figures culled from the annual reports of banks for fiscal 2015.
Such gaps have often led to concerns surrounding talent crunch in government firms.
Global differences
Other central bank chiefs do not necessarily rake in the big bucks either.
US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, for instance, made a little over $200,000 in 2014, lesser than at least 113 other Fed employees.
But incomes vary across the globe. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, was paid $518,264 in 2013—twice as much as Yellen, Bloomberg reported in 2014. Mike Carney, the governor of Bank of England, earned $993,990 in fiscal 2014.
In Asia, Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s annual pay was hiked for the first time in nine years in 2014, to $294,638.