High salary and perks

A few letters appeared in the press recently about the appointment of chief of the Oil and Gas Development Authority (OGRA) at a high salary and perks amounting to about half a million rupees per month.
This is not a solitary case of its nature. Such appointments are rampant in the banking sector since the so-called professional management's were inducted in the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) in early 1997.
These appointments are at the middle level of the hierarchy with salary and perks ranging upto half a million rupees a month and in some cases exceeding that.
Since the present economic managers took over immediately after October,1999 coup, the central bank of the country also made quite a few such appointments in the name of "Advisors', some of them have been relieved on the expiry of their contracts while others are still working.
The prominent among those still working are (a) head of treasury with salary and perks exceeding half a million rupees per month (b) advisor-risk management division recently engaged at a salary of about half a million rupees per month, (c) advisor-information systems department drawing salary and perks of about half a million rupees per month and (d) director, information services department drawing over quarter a million rupees a month.
The incumbents at (a) and (c) are understood to have been granted annual increments of Rs one lakh and Rs 70,000 during 2003.
The irony is that the central bank has not taken any risk so far. Had the highly paid head of the treasury arranged to move a part of the reserves from US$ to euro, the bank had earned a lot.
A report appeared in a newspaper, putting India's reserves at $102 billion also indicating that a part of the reserves has been kept by India in euro making substantial gains.
The central bank had engaged a Malaysian lady for 18 months for advising on "human resources" matters at a salary of US$10,000 a month.
Other perks would bring the expenditure on her over Rs 8 lakh a month. What contribution she made for the country and how her work can be utilised in our current environments is a big question mark?
An official of the central bank has been for quite a few days engaged in giving lectures on the agricultural finance at various cities in the country.
It is understood that he was/is being paid Rs 6,000 per lecture, besides travel expenditure.
The training department of the central bank also pays heavy amounts to the persons invited to deliver lectures to the banks' own and foreign trainees.
Can a poor nation afford such extraordinary expenditures?