Mittal earned a base salary of $2.005 million and $1.677 million in performance related payments in 2006, Arcelor Mittal disclosed in its annual report sent to its shareholders last week.

Besides, the India-born business tycoon was also granted 1,00,000 stock options worth about $1.8 million in 2006 - taking the total options held by him to 4,40,000 with an estimated value of over $8 million.

Even after excluding the stock options part, Mittal's total cash compensation in a year makes the average pay packet of a CEO in India pale in comparison, which has been put at $1,11,510 by human resources consultancy firm Mercer HR Consulting.

Mittal's base salary of about $2 million is also more than 22 times of the average base salary earned by a CEO in India.

According to a recent survey conducted by Mercer HR, Indian CEOs are paid the lowest among their Asian counterparts with a base salary of $89,759 and total annual cash payments of $1,11,510.

The huge gap comes despite Mittal taking a pay cut of $1,89,000 from about $2.2 million of base salary in 2005. He also did not get any performance related payments in 2005, although he held stock options worth about $6 million at the end of that year.