Wealthiest 1% own 40.5% of India’s wealth, says new Oxfam report

Key takeaways: 

• The capital of India’s wealthiest man Gautam Adani rose by 46% in 2022.
• According to a new study by Oxfam, India’s leading 1% owned almost 40.5% of its total wealth in 2021.

In 2022, the number of wealthiest persons in the nation rose to 166 from 102 in 2020, the study said.

Meanwhile, it added that the needy in India “are unable to afford even basic needs to live”.

The charity called on India’s finance minister to impose a wealth surcharge on the ultra-rich to tackle this “obscene” imbalance.

Survival of the Richest: 

The report – Survival of The Richest – was revealed as the World Economic Forum started in Davos, Switzerland.

The study emphasised the enormous difference in wealth distribution in India, saying that almost 40% of the wealth made in the nation from 2012 to 2021 had gone to only 1% of the population while just 3% had dripped down to the bottom 50%.

Gautam Adani’s wealth increase in 2022: 

In 2022, the worth of India’s wealthiest man Gautam Adani rose by 46%, while the combined wealth of India’s 100 richest had touched $660bn.

In 2022, Mr Adani was ranked the second wealthiest person in the world on Bloomberg’s wealth index. He even topped the list of people whose wealth saw the highest rise globally during the year.

Poor people slammed in India by tax: 

Meanwhile, the nation’s poor and middle class were taxed more than the wealthy, Oxfam said.

Around 64% of the nation’s total goods and services tax (GST) came from the base 50% of the population, while just 4% came from the top 10%, the study said.