Number of Indians in Hurun rich list with wealth over Rs1,000 cr swells to 617
26 Sep 2017
Number of Indians with wealth of over Rs1,000 cr showed a big jump in the 'India Rich List 2017', compiled by China-based Hurun Report, which has listed 617 individuals with wealth of Rs1,000 crore or more - up 278 from the previous year.
And, despite demonetisation woes, the number of dollar billionaires in the list has increased to 136 from 126 last year. There were 59 billionaires in the inaugural Hurun India Rich List in 2012.
''Demonetisation, GST implementation and so on have not impacted wealth creation in organised sector. In fact, going by the trend in the list, these factors seem to have positively impacted the mega rich and their companies. Despite a solid performance of the corporates, a declining trend in national GDP growth points to impact of such schemes on the unorganized sectors,'' said Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and chief researcher, Hurun Report India.
This year's Hurun India rich list also saw Acharya Balkrishna, the head of yoga guru Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurveda and D-mart founder Radhakishan Damani improve their ranks in the list which continues to be headed by Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani.
Balkrishna rose to the eighth position from 25th last year, after seeing his wealth grow by 173 per cent to Rs70,000 crore, while Damania, founder of Avenue Supermarts that runs D-Mart, is the biggest gainer with wealth increase of 320 per cent.
A massive rally in the stock market and the resultant jump in Reliance stocks saw the wealth of Ambani shooting up by a massive 58 per cent to Rs2,57,000 crore this year, says the report which is into the sixth year.
Ambani retains the richest Indian title for the sixth year running and this year he has climbed to top 15 in the Hurun global rich list for the first time. His wealth is 50 per cent more than GDP of Yemen, the country of his birth.
"Balkrishna, CEO of Patanjali and childhood friend of Ramdev, is now among the top 10 rich people in the country. Damani, the new retail king, of D-Mart is the biggest gainer with wealth increase of 320 per cent with the blockbuster listing of Avenue Supermarts, " Hurun said in a statement.
Balkrishna rose to the eighth position from 25th last year, after seeing his wealth grow by 173 per cent to Rs 70,000 crore. Patanjali, with a turnover of Rs 10,561 crore in FY17 has been a close competition to major global brands.
The biggest gainer (321 per cent) was Damani, the 62- year-old chairman of Avenue Supermarts, followed by Anurang Jain and family of Endurance Tech with a rise of 286 per cent.
The wealth calculation was based on the 31 July exchange rate, when the rate of exchange to the dollar was 64.1 rupees, it added.
At 34, Divyank Turakhia of Media.net is the youngest self-made billionaire. He joins five other self-made individuals under-40, all from new technology businesses.
The 42-year-old Bengaluru-based Ambiga Subramanian is the youngest self-made woman in the list. She sold her shares in Mu-Sigma, the data analytics unicorn that she co-founded. There are 51 women in the rich list this year.
The cut-off to top 100 has more than doubled to Rs8,400 crore since 2013.
Mumbai tops the list with 182 individuals followed by New Delhi (117) and Bengaluru (51). Chennai and Kanpur enter the top 10 cities for the first time with 15 and 8 new additions, respectively.
On average, wealth of the listers has risen by 11 per cent over 2016 and at least, 16 in the list saw their wealth double this year. While the number of dollar billionaires jumped to 136 from 126 in 2016 as many as 100 individuals saw their wealth decline.