The pay scenario has changed immensely since economic liberalisation and the advent of performance-linked wages or incentives (?Fact and fable?, Jan 17). An employee who contributes value to his/her organisation definitely deserves a better and differential paypacket. More and more Indian corporates prefer to use their profits to issue rights or bonus/preference shares to their stakeholders, even while effecting dividend payments (often at a lower rate so as to conserve cash for reinvestment purposes). Importantly, as your editorial observes, there is the employees stock option (Esop). A PSU like State Bank of India making a beginning in this direction is a welcome step. But for the Esop plan to transform SBI, you have aptly said that it must be accompanied by performance linkages that do not reward everyone indiscriminately. Else, it will lose its purpose of multiplying productivity. There has to be a clear differentiation drawn between those who perform and perform very well.
?Srinivasan Umashankar, Nagpur
Under their sway
What the Finance Minister is trying to do (?FM talks up sentiment?, Jan 23) is to calm markets in India. It suggests that we have decoupled from the US in terms of economic policies. However, markets are not convinced, if the massive selloff we have witnessed in recent days is anything to go by. Equity investors apparently take their cues from elsewhere. An accentuation of the R-word is all that it takes to sway their judgment.
?VN Sinha, Lucknow