India’s rich are getting richer.
The top 1% of the country’s population now hold 58.4% of its wealth, up from 53% in 2015, according to findings published in the 2016 Global Wealth Report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute.
Within the BRICS group, only Russia’s wealthy control more of their respective country’s wealth.
“While wealth has been rising in India, not everyone has shared in this growth,” the report said. “There is still considerable wealth poverty, reflected in the fact that 96% of the adult population has wealth below $10,000 (Rs6.84 lakh).”
The richest 10% of India’s population owns 80.7% of its wealth, which echoes the trend in wealth distribution around the world. Globally, the wealthiest tenth of the population own 89% of all assets, up from 87.7% in 2015.
In India, overall household wealth has fallen by 0.8%, or $26 billion, to $3 trillion in 2016 after growing steadily over the past decade. Between 2000 to 2016, annual growth of wealth per adult in rupees has averaged 6%. Moreover, personal wealth in India is dominated by property and other real assets, which make up 86% of estimated household assets.
In all, 248,000 ultra-rich individuals from India are part of the world’s richest 1%.