The rift between the founders and the management at Infosys seems far from over. Infosys founder, N R Narayana Murthy, on Sunday criticized the proposed salary hike of Chief Operating Officer (COO) Pravin Rao.
Questioning a steep hike in compensation of the COO of India's second largest software services company, Murthy said, "Giving nearly 60% to 70% increase in compensation for a top level person when the compensation for most of the employees in the company was increased by just 6% to 8% is, in my opinion, not proper."
"The impact of such a decision will likely erode the trust and faith of the employees in the management and the board. With what conscience can a decent person like Pravin tell his juniors that they should work hard and make sacrifice to reduce cost and protect margin," he added.
Batting for maintaining a reasonable ratio between the lowest salary and the highest salary, Murthy said, "I have always felt that every senior management person of an Indian corporation has to show self restraint in his or her compensation and perquisites.
In his letter, Murthy said that without compassionate capitalism, this country cannot create jobs and solve the problem of poverty. "Experts tell me that capitalism may come to an end in the not-so-distant future if the current corporate leaders do not heed this advice in India."
Earlier, NR Narayana Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Nandan Nilekani had written to the company's board raising concerns including the pay hike given to Chief Executive Vishal Sikka.