File photo | Photo Credit: BCCL

New Delhi: Indians are admired all across the world for their work ethics. Indian employees more often than not refrain from using their sick leaves and they end up encashing all the leaves to add money to their wealth. While it is a common thing among Indian employees, earning about Rs 21 crore just from sick leave encashment is unheard of.

Recently it was revealed that Larsen and Toubro retired non-executive chairman Anil Manibhai Naik managed to earn Rs 21 crore from enchashing unused sick leaves. It may be noted that this Republic Day, Anil.M.Naik received one of the highest national civilian honours – the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India. He has also been awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2009, apart from numerous awards from state governments, industry, academia, media and society.

According to L&T's annual report for 2017-18, Naik earned a whopping Rs 21.33 crore last year for his unused leaves in his career. Naik served worked for L&T for 50 years and all his unused leaves when enchased were worth Rs 21.337 crore. His total payout was over Rs 137 crore which included a basic salary of Rs 2.7 crore. His retirement gratuity benefits and exercise of stock options were worth Rs 100 crore.

Worth mentioning here is that Naik is the son of village primary school teacher. He joined the L&T in 1965 as a junior engineer and worked his way up the ranks. Naik is also famous for fending off takeover bids from the Ambanis in the 1990s. In August 2016, Naika had announced that he would donate 75% of his income to charity.