Main highlights from Oxfam report on wealth gap in India

Out of India's total wealth the richest 10% of the population holds 74.3%. The difference is even sharper for the top 1%. India's richest 1% holds 42.5% of national wealth while the bottom 50% of the population owns only 2.8% of the national wealth. In other words, the richest 1% holds more than four times the wealth held by 95.3 crore people (or the bottom 70% of the population). The bottom 90% of India's population holds 25.7% of national wealth. Wealth of richest 9 billionaires is equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 50% of India's population.

As per the Oxfam report titled Time to Care, India ranks 62 out of 74 among emerging economies in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Inclusive Development Index (2018). India ranks behind its neighbours Nepal (22), Bangladesh (34) and Sri Lanka (40), with only South Africa (69) and Pakistan (74) ranked lower among BRICS nations. The same report estimates that 60% Indians live on less than US$3.20 per day.

The report also quotes Credit Suisse, according to which 78% of the Indian population has a net worth of less than US$10,000 while only 1.8% of adults, about 1.56 crore people out of 136 crore, have a net worth above US$100,000. The report estimates that India has a share of 1.6% among the top 1% of global wealth holders which is 8,27,000 adults.

The report estimated that currently there are 7,59,000 dollar millionaires in India. It also says that India has added 4,16,000 new dollar millionaires over the last year.

The count of ultra-high net worth individuals who possess wealth of US$50 million or more, is estimated at 4,460 with 1,790 out of these having net worth of more than US$100 million.

In 2019, India's total wealth increased by US$ 625.5 billion (approx. Rs 44,25,900 crore). The wealth of the top 1% increased by 46% while the bottom 50% saw an increase at just 3% in their wealth.

India's billionaire wealth increased from US$325.5 billion (Rs 22,72,500 crore) in 2017 to US$408 billion (Rs 28,96,800 crore) in 2019. The total wealth of Indian billionaires is higher than India's Union Budget for the fiscal year 2018-19 which was at Rs 24,42,200 crore.

Analysis of billionaire wealth by Oxfam showed that in 2019, there were 15 billionaires from the consumer goods industry while more than 10 billionaires were from the pharmaceuticals industry, a rarity among developing countries.