When Sheriff of Mint Street mints less money than his colleagues

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan may be the most powerful person at the Central bank, but he does not appear to be the best-paid official on its salary list. According to figures published by the RBI under the Right To Information Act, Rajan's total monthly emoluments stood at Rs 1,98,700. This included a basic pay of Rs 90,000, dearness allowance of Rs 1,01,700 and 'others' to the tune of Rs 7,000.

There are, at least, three other RBI officials who draw monthly pay packets that exceed Rajan's emoluments. These include Gopalkrishna Sitaram Hegde (Rs 4 lakh), Annamalai Arappuli Gounder (Rs 2,20,355) and V Kandasamy (Rs 2.1 lakh), according to the RBI list of 'monthly emoluments of employees'.

The latest available figures, published by the RBI on its website under the RTI Act, are for the period of June-July 2015. Hegde draws his salary as the 'principal legal adviser' of the RBI . Total emoluments for Hegde and Kandasamy did not include basic pay or DA components.

Interestingly, the list of monthly emoluments also shows that Alpana Killawala, designated as principal adviser in the department of communications at the RBI, were higher than that of the four deputy governors (DGs) and 11 executive directors (EDs), whose pay packages have been made public by the RBI on its website.

In the RBI pecking order, the governor figures at the top followed by the four DGs with the EDs being ranked next while the heads of various departments come below them. The governor remains on the top in terms of basic pay. The total monthly emoluments for each DG stood at Rs 1,73,900 while that of the ED was Rs 1,70,864.

Total emoluments are higher than that of DGs in case of, at least, 23 'employees', including Killawala, whose total emoluments have been disclosed as Rs 1,78,265.

This included basic pay of Rs 67,000, DA of Rs 85,239 and 'other' payments of Rs 26,026. At least. 44 employees earned more than the EDs.

Under the RTI Act, every public authority is required to publish the monthly remuneration received by each of its officers and employees, including the system of compensation as provided in its regulations.

The RBI has published on its website the monthly emoluments of top management (as on July 1, 2015) as also the monthly emoluments of employees (as on June 30, 2015).

While the first section provides monthly emoluments of Rajan, four DGs and 11 EDs, the second section has more than 16,000 entries from across the country some of whom get 'total monthly emoluments' of less than Rs 10,000.

Rajan, formerly chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and onleave professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, joined RBI nearly three years ago and his term is scheduled to end in September.