New Delhi: The richest 1 per cent of Indians hold more than four times the wealth held by 953 million people or the bottom 70 per cent of the population. Even among these, wealth of the top nine billionaires is equal to the wealth of the bottom 50 per cent of the population, a new study has shown.
According to Oxfam’s ‘2020 Inequality Report’, the total wealth of India rose by nearly Rs 4.42 lakh crore over the last year, of which the richest 1 per cent saw their wealth increase by 46 per cent while the wealth of the bottom 50 per cent increased at a rate of just 3% per cent.
The total wealth of Indian billionaires is higher than the total Union Budget of India for the fiscal year 2018-19 which was at INR 24.42 lakh crore, noted the report, which was released on Monday ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
It illustrated that it would take a female domestic worker 22,277 years to earn what the CEO of India’s top tech company makes in one year. On the contrary, with an income of roughly Rs 106 per second, the CEO would earn more in 10 minutes than what the domestic worker would make in one year.
India added 416,000 new dollar millionaires in the past year, with the total number of dollar millionaires estimated to be 759,000 dollar millionaires in the country.
Per Credit Suisse, 78 per cent of the population in India has a net worth below USD 10,000 while 1.8 per cent of adults, about 1.56 crore people out of 136 crores, have a net worth above USD 100,000.
The number of ultra-high net worth individuals – those possessing wealth worth USD 50 million or more – is estimated at 4,460 with 1,790 of these having a net worth greater than USD 100 million. Both numbers have risen by 1,060 and 290, respectively.
Among the 74 emerging economies across the world, India ranks at a dismal 62 in the World Economic Forum’s Inclusive Development Index (2018), behind even neighbors Nepal, which sits at 22, Bangladesh at 34, and Sri Lanka at 40. As per the index, an estimated 60 per cent of Indians survive on less than USD 3.20 a day.
Comments
0 comment