Company Secretary Salary in India: Stipend and Official Pay Scales

Why there is no single CS salary figure

ICSI publishes how many members it has and runs a placement portal, but it does not survey or publish what its members earn. Salary "averages" on job websites are built from what users report and vary from site to site. This article used to quote such ranges; we have removed them because we could not trace them to an official source.

What a Company Secretary earns depends on the employer, the size of the company, the city, the grade of the post and your years of experience after qualifying. The notices below show how much the pay changes with grade and experience.

Stipend during CS training

Under ICSI's Student Training Guidelines 2024, you do 21 months of long-term training after passing CS Executive and the 30-day Executive Development Programme. The pay rules for that period are:

• Every Company Secretary in practice or company that trains you must pay a monthly stipend of at least ₹5,000, or the amount ICSI's Council sets from time to time.
• The stipend is also paid for the probation period.
• It must be paid through banking channels, and ICSI can ask either side for proof.

Trainers may pay more than the minimum. Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (Visakhapatnam Steel Plant) offered ₹25,000 a month with accommodation in its notice of 24 February 2025 for CS trainees who had passed the Professional programme and were up to 27 years old. How the training fits into the course is explained in our guide to the CS course: levels, eligibility, papers and training.

Pay in public sector posts for Company Secretaries

Public sector companies state the pay scale in their recruitment notices. The examples below are from notices posted on ICSI's Placement page in 2024 and 2025. They are not open vacancies, and the pay in a newer notice may differ. A pay scale is the range of basic pay; dearness allowance (IDA or DA), HRA and other allowances are paid on top.

Posts for newly qualified and early-career Company Secretaries

Senior posts

NLC India and Mazagon Dock also give an approximate cost to company (CTC). For the same E-6 scale (₹90,000–2,40,000), NLC India gave about ₹24.51 lakh a year and Mazagon Dock gave a minimum of about ₹28.90 lakh a year, so CTC differs between employers even on the same scale. CTC counts allowances and benefits as well as basic pay.

Pay in contract and government roles

Some government bodies hire Company Secretaries on fixed-term contracts at a consolidated monthly amount, which includes everything and has no separate allowances.

Private companies rarely publish the pay in their job advertisements, so there is no official benchmark for private-sector salaries.

What to check in a job notice before you apply

• Pay scale, CTC or consolidated pay. A scale such as ₹50,000–1,60,000 is basic pay, with allowances on top. CTC is the employer's total cost. A consolidated amount is all you get.
• Regular post or contract. POWERGRID's Company Secretary Professional post was a 2-year contract, and MCA's Young Professional posts run for at most 4 years.
• Service bonds. POWERGRID's Officer Trainees had to sign a bond to serve for at least three years: ₹5,00,000 for General, OBC (NCL) and EWS candidates and ₹2,50,000 for SC, ST and PwBD candidates, plus taxes.
• Age and experience limits. Most of the notices above set an upper age limit, and several ask for experience after qualifying; training during the CS course does not count as experience for IEPFA.

Scope: where the demand for Company Secretaries comes from

Much of the demand is set by law. ICSI's notice to recruiters for its July 2026 Mega Placement Drive explains that, under Section 203 of the Companies Act, 2013 read with Rules 8 and 8A, every listed company and every other public company with paid-up capital of ₹10 crore or more must appoint a Company Secretary as key managerial personnel, and any other company with paid-up share capital of ₹10 crore or more must have a whole-time Company Secretary.

ICSI holds Mega Placement Drives twice a year at its Regional Offices and CCGRTs; the July 2026 drive was for members who became associate members (ACS) on or after 1 January 2025. The duties of the role are covered in our guide to the role and duties of a Company Secretary in India, and the career paths and where openings are posted are in our guide to Company Secretary jobs in India.