‘Even ₹10 crore is not enough to retire in India’: Founder busts a middle class myth

A ₹10 crore retirement fund might sound like a golden ticket, but founder Anil Maddala says it's a mirage without the right assumptions.

Anil Maddala, founder of growFOLIO, is challenging one of India’s most popular financial myths: that ₹10 crore is enough to retire comfortably. In a widely shared LinkedIn post, Maddala argues that retirement planning in India often fails—not due to insufficient corpus, but flawed assumptions.

“Most people think yes. Most retirees know it’s not that simple,” he wrote.

According to Maddala, geographical location alone can skew outcomes. “₹10 crore behaves very differently in Mumbai vs Coimbatore,” he noted, pointing to stark differences in cost of living across cities.

He also warned against blindly relying on withdrawal rates. A ₹3 lakh monthly expense with a conservative 4% annual withdrawal could deplete a corpus in just 12 to 15 years, especially if inflation and healthcare costs accelerate post-retirement.

“Inflation doesn’t take a break just because you retired,” Maddala said, underscoring the need for realistic financial modeling. He stressed that asset allocation trumps corpus size, and that fixed deposits alone are no longer sufficient to sustain long-term needs.

His core message: retirement is not about hitting a magic number, but having the freedom to say no. “Too many people chase a number. Very few chase a plan,” he wrote.

Maddala recommends pressure-testing retirement strategies by comparing scenarios—such as living in a Tier-1 versus Tier-2 city, adjusting withdrawal rates, or factoring in medical inflation and market downturns.

His post is a call to rethink conventional financial advice, especially as India’s rising cost of living collides with longer life expectancies and unpredictable markets.