Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan recently spoke about the salary he drew while being in office. Rajan said he was paid just Rs 4 lakhs per annum as salary for heading the office of RBI Governor.
During an interview on the ‘Figuring Out’ podcast with YouTuber Raj Shamani, Raghuram Rajan disclosed that his annual salary as the RBI Governor was Rs 4 lakh. He mentioned, “I’m not aware of the current salary, but it was Rs 4 lakh per year during my tenure. The significant benefit is the accommodation – a spacious residence located a few blocks away from Dhirubhai Ambani’s residence on Malabar Hill in Mumbai.”
Is Raghuram Rajan lying randomly?
— Abhishek (@AbhishBanerj) December 26, 2023
He says his RBI gov salary was just 4 lakh per year
Fact:
– Salary was 20 lakh per yr
– RBI paid 71 lakh to move his household goods
– RBI gifted him 4 paintings claimed to be just Rs 10,000 each but such paintings often sell for 1 lakh each pic.twitter.com/4C8tE3irIg
While Rajan claimed his annual pay during his tenure as RBI governor was Rs 4 lakhs, several reports in the media indicate that the former RBI governor may have casually lied about his annual remuneration.
In an article titled ‘RBI spared no expense in hosting Raghuram Rajan’ published in The Sunday Guardian in June 2020, the former governor who served in the office from August 2013 to September 2016, drew approximately Rs 61.2 lakhs for the entire tenure, which calculates to Rs 1.69 lakhs per month.
The article cites an RTI response that the RBI spent more on transporting his goods back to his home from Mumbai to Chicago than the total salary it paid him for his entire tenure. The RBI reportedly paid Rs 71 lakhs for transporting his household goods, more than what they paid him as salary for the entire three years.
Reportedly, when Raghuram Rajan left the office in September 2016, his salary was close to Rs 2.09 lakhs per month, which amounts to Rs 25 lakhs per annum. In an article published on Moneycontrol in July 2022, the current salary of the incumbent RBI governor Shaktikanta Das was Rs 2.5 lakhs per month, or Rs 30 lakhs per annum. The progression in salary for the RBI governor is in line with the remuneration at the time when Rajan left the office in 2016.
Raghu Ram Rajan steps out to defend Congress MP linked to 500 cr Income Tax raid
It is noteworthy to mention that Rajan has often hit the headlines with his controversial remarks and statements. Recently, in an interview published by The Red Mike on 12th December, former Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Dr Raghuram Rajan, gave a bizarre “context” to the unaccounted cash recovered from Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu. Dr Rajan claimed that the opposition parties are “forced” to use illicit money because electoral bonds provide an unequal playing field favouring the ruling party.
In his question, Sanket Upadhyay asked Dr Rajan about his views on electoral bonds, citing the statement given by former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg at Idea Exchange. Garg thoroughly explained why electoral bonds were introduced and what the ill effects of removing them from the system would be. Sanket asked Dr Rajan about his views on the statement where Garg said that if electoral bonds are removed, it will be cash on the streets yearly in the political process.
Dr Rajan asserted electoral bonds are an utterly non-transparent way of financing. Parties receive funds, and what they get is not known to anyone. In case an industrialist gives 1,000 crores to a party, the public can never know. He further called it a “bad way of financing elections” as the only people who know who donated what to the State Bank of India. He claimed that in India, it is hard to maintain secrets, and the ruling party can find the information of the business houses that donated to the opposition parties.
