The ongoing global slowdown has started to erode salaries of top executives of India's top IT services provider, Infosys Technologies. The company has decided to pay minimum discretionary pay to staff in a bid to control costs and mitigate the impact of global slowdown on Friday.

The chief executive of IT firm, Kris Gopalakrishnan, said, "This is going to be a prolonged downturn. Slow performance, the increment to its employees will be minimal this time around. "

The IT major's clients, mainly in US, the worst hit market under the impact of global slowdown, have been forced to cut budget size and reduce costs in the wake of slowing growth. The disclosure of largest ever corporate fraud in Satyam's computers also tainted the image of Indian corporate sector, deepening the existing crisis.

Mr. Gopalakrishnan said, "The environment continues to be challenging. The feed backs we are getting from clients are that the budgets are going to be down, in some cases significantly down. They are also saying that when the budgets are released there will be a delay in spending."

He also expressed reservations on U. S. President Barack Obama's pledge to discourage outsourcing and asked to jointly handle the problem instead of adopting protectionism policy.

Shares of the company declined 0.4 percent at 1,231.30 rupees in the Bombay Stock Exchange.