Davos: 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 just 3 per cent increase in the wealth of the bottom-half of the population, an Oxfam study said on Monday. Oxfam further said that 13.6 crore Indians, who make up the poorest 10 per cent of the country, have continued to remain in debt since 2004.
Asking the political and business leaders who have gathered in Davos for the annual jamboree of the rich and the powerful to take urgent steps to tackle the growing divide, Oxfam said this increasing inequality is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging economies and fuelling public anger across the globe. Oxfam Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, one of the key participants at the WEF summit in Davos, said it is “morally outrageous” that a few wealthy individuals are amassing a growing share of India’s wealth, while the poor are struggling to eat their next meal or pay for their child’s medicines.
“If this obscene inequality between the top 1 percent and the rest of India continues, then it will lead to a complete collapse of the social and democratic structure of this country,” she added. Noting that globally 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 people last year.
The world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, saw his fortune increase to USD 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’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 national wealth. “The bottom 60 per cent, the majority of the population, own merely 4.8 per cent of the national wealth.
Wealth of top 9 billionaires is equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 50 per cent of the population,” the study said while noting that high level of wealth disparity subverts democracy.Between 2018 and 2022, India is estimated to produce 70 new dollar millionaires every day. “The survey reveals how governments are exacerbating inequality by underfunding public services, such as healthcare and education, on the one hand, while under taxing corporations and the wealthy, and failing to clamp down on tax dodging on the other,” Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar said. The survey also shows that women and girls are hardest hit by rising economic inequality, he added.
“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 across the globe. 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,” Byanyima said
