Richest 1% own 40.5% of India's wealth, says new Oxfam report

India's top 1% owned more than 40.5% of its total wealth in 2021, according to a new report by Oxfam. In 2022, the number of billionaires in the country increased to 166 from from 102 in 2020, the report said. Meanwhile, it added that the poor in India "are unable to afford even basic necessities to survive". The charity called on India's finance minister to levy a wealth tax on the ultra rich to tackle this "obscene" inequality.

The report - Survival of The Richest - was released as the World Economic Forum began in Davos, Switzerland. The report highlighted the large disparity in wealth distribution in India, saying that more than 40% of the wealth created in the country from 2012 to 2021 had gone to just 1% of the population while only 3% had trickled down to the bottom 50%.

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

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