The Covid-19 did not impact in any way the business tycoons as the stock markets remained unfazed during the period. On top of the rich list is Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman & Managing Director, Mukesh Ambani. His wealth grew by 47% in 2019 whereas in 2020 it went up by 37.2% to reach a mind-numbing $87.5 billion or Rs 6.44 lakh crore. He added $21.5 billion to his net worth in 2020, which translates to Rs 480 crore per day.
Gautam Adani of Adani Group was not behind and he topped the charts with a 100% increase in his wealth from $21 billion in 2019 to $40 billion. The wealth of Azim Premji of Wipro, HCL Technologies’ Shiv Nadar, and Infosys founders grew in the range of 55-67% during the period. Other winners were Radhakishan Damani up 41%, Dilip Sanghvi up 36%, and Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal, up 21%.
According to a Business Standard report, India’s billionaire count reached an all-time high in 2020 owing to the stock market rally during the year. India’s super-rich club, in dollar terms, grew to 90 this year from 80 at the end of 2019. The combined wealth of these 90 tycoons stood at $483 billion or Rs 35,57,900 crore (at current USD-INR rates), registering a spike of 33% in 2020 from $364 billion recorded at the end of 2019.
The wealth of these 90 super-rich individuals is equivalent to nearly a fifth of India’s gross domestic product (GDP).
