Thanks to the sharp rally in the capital markets, the Hurun’s list of rich people in India has lengthened more than three times this year to 1,043 from 339 recorded in 2016. Of this, about 16 people have doubled their asset in the past one year even as 100 individuals saw their networth fall. There were 426 individuals with a networth of ₹1,600 crore each and 617 with assets of ₹1,000 crore.

While Mukesh Ambani (60), with a rise of 58 per cent in his asset to ₹2.58 lakh crore, retained his numero uno position for the sixth time in a row, Haridwar-based Acharya Balkrishna (45) of Patanjali rose to the eighth position from 25 last year after seeing his wealth grow 173 per cent to ₹70,000 crore.

Dilip Shanghvi (61) of Sun Pharma retains the second place with a wealth base of ₹89,000 crore although shares of his flagship company fell 36 per cent after the USFDA put the company under a scanner for regulatory breaches.

Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman and Chief Researcher, Hurun Report Global, said it is rare to find a country with such a dominant richest person (Ambani) whose wealth is more than three times as much as that of the second on the list; this is never seen in the US, China, the UK, and Russia.

In the past one year ended July, the BSE Sensex increased 16 per cent to 32,514 and the BSE Mid Cap was up 16 per cent. The market capitalisation of all listed companies is now equivalent to 84 per cent of India’s nominal GDP, which is the highest in emerging markets.

The better performance of mid-cap stocks and the success of IPOs saw an addition of 302 new names although 22 others dropped out of the list. The combined wealth of India’s richest is worth $640 billion, equivalent to one-fourth of India’s GDP last year and similar to the GDPs of Switzerland ($660 billion) and the combined GDP of South Africa ($317 billion) and Israel ($340 billion).

Steel baron Lakshmi Niwas Mittal (67) secured the third position with a networth of ₹88,200 crore due to an uptick in steel prices and a one-time $832 million saving from a new labour contract signed last year with his US workers.

With networth of ₹85,100 crore and ₹79,300 crore, IT czars Shiv Nadar (72) of HCL and Azim Premji of Wipro occupied the fourth and fifth positions.

The biggest gainers

The biggest gain of 321 per cent in wealth was registered by Radhakishan Damani (62), Chairman of Avenue Supermarts, and Anurang Jain and family (55), the Managing Director of Endurance Technologies, with a wealth increase of 286 per cent.

With 214 and 117 entrants respectively, Maharashtra and Delhi are the preferred States of residence for Hurun India Rich. Strikingly, 23 individuals on the list migrated into Maharashtra, 22 into Delhi and 13 into Karnataka to set up and establish their businesses.

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