Indian billionaires saw their fortunes swell by Rs 2,200 crore a day last year, with the top 1 per cent of the country’s richest getting richer by 39 per cent as against a mere 3 per cent increase in wealth for the bottom half of the population, an Oxfam study said on January 21. It also said that 13.6 crore Indians, who make up the country’s poorest 10 per cent, continued to remain in debt since 2004.

Globally, billionaires’ fortunes rose by 12 per cent or $2.5 billion a day in 2018, whereas the poorest half of the world’s population saw their wealth decline by 11 per cent, the rights group said in its annual study released before the World Economic Forum annual meeting in the Swiss resort town of Davos. Noting that wealth is becoming even more concentrated, Oxfam said 26 people now own the same as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, down from 44 last year.

The world’s richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, saw his fortune increase to $112 billion, and just 1 per cent of his fortune is equivalent to the whole health budget for Ethiopia, a country of 115 million people.

India added 18 new billionaires last year, raising the total number to 119, while their wealth crossed the $400 billion mark for the first time. It rose from $325.5 billion in 2017 to $440.1 billion in 2018, making it the single largest annual increase since the 2008 global financial crisis, the report said.

“India’s top 10 per cent of the population holds 77.4 per cent of the total national wealth. The contrast is even sharper for the top 1 per cent that holds 51.53 per cent of the wealth. The bottom 60 per cent, the majority of the population, own merely 4.8 per cent of the national wealth. The wealth of top nine billionaires is equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 50 per cent of the population,” it said.

The combined revenue and capital expenditure of the Centre and states for medical, public health, sanitation and water supply is Rs 2,08,166 crore, which is less than the wealth of India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani (Rs 2.8 lakh crore), the survey noted.

Between 2018 and 2022, India is estimated to mint 70 new dollar millionaires every day, Oxfam said. “The survey reveals how governments are exacerbating inequality by underfunding public services, such as health care and education, on the one hand, while under-taxing corporations and the wealthy, and failing to clamp down on tax dodging on the other,” said Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar.

The survey also shows that women and girls are hardest hit by rising economic inequality, said Oxfam International executive director Winnie Byanyima. “The size of one’s bank account should not dictate how many years your children spend in school, or how long you live - yet this is the reality in too many countries. While corporations and the super-rich enjoy low tax bills, millions of girls are denied a decent education and women are dying for lack of maternity care,” she said.

Oxfam said in many countries, including India, a decent education or quality health care has become a luxury only the rich can afford. “Children from poor families in India are three times more likely to die before their first birthday than children from rich families,” it said.

Oxfam said its calculations are based on latest comprehensive data sources available publicly, including from the Credit Suisse Wealth Databook and the annual Forbes Billionaires List.