With Rs 2.47 lakh crore, Mukesh Ambani is richest Indian for the 10th consecutive year

Forbes' list of the richest Indians was topped by Mukesh Ambani for the tenth consecutive year. The elder Ambani brother, Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, has seen a very successful year. One factor contributing to his recent earnings is the massive success of Reliance Jio since its launch in 2016. Mukesh Ambani tops the list with a staggering Rs 2.47 lakh crore or $38 billion in net worth, and is also one of the top five richest people in Asia. However, his younger brother, Anil Ambani , is way down the list on the 45th spot with $3.15 billion.
 
The magazine mentioned that Mukesh Ambani saw his wealth increase by 67 per cent from last year. In fact there was an increase of 26 per cent in the aggregate wealth of the top 100 richest people. Forbes also mentions that all of the rank holders in the list are billionaires this year. The minimum worth to make to the list last year was $1.25 billion, which shot up by 17 per cent this year.

On the second spot is Wipro's Azim Premji with $19 billion, followed by the combined net worth of the Hinduja brothers, Lakshmi Mittal, Pallonji Mistry, the Godrej family and Adani.

It must be mentioned here that there are only three women entrepreneurs in the top 100, excluding the positions that have gone out to families or siblings. The richest woman ranked in the list is Savitri Jindal of the OP Jindal Group with 7.5 billion USD on the 16th spot. Leena Tiwari of USV India is on 71 with 2.19 billion USD, followed by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon on 72 with 2.16 billion USD.  

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, 39, of Paytm is the youngest individual and one of the newest entrant in the list with 1.47 billion USD.

Cookies-and-airline tycoon Nusli Wadia is the wealthiest newcomer with a net worth of USD 5.6 billion at the 25th position on the Forbes' richest Indians list.

Other new entrants in the list are Dinesh Nandwana (ranked 88th with a fortune of USD 1.72 billion) of e- governance services firm Vakrangee; and Rana Kapoor (100th, USD 1.46 billion) of Yes Bank.

"While the Indian billionaire factory continued to churn out new names from diverse sectors, the price of entry rose to a record high. The top 100 club is getting more exclusive with each passing year," said Naazneen Karmali, India Editor of Forbes Asia.

The minimum net worth to make the cut in this year's list rose to USD 1.46 billion from USD 1.25 billion last year.

Last year, Yoga guru Ramdev's close associate Acharya Balkrishna had entered the annual Forbes list of India's 100 Richest People at the 48th position with a net worth of USD 2.5 billion. This year he has improved his rank to 19 and his wealth has swelled to USD 6.55 billion.

Noted returnees to the list include veteran investor Radhakishan Damani at the 12th place with a net worth of USD USD 9.3 billion. Damani saw a significant rise in wealth by the listing of his supermarket chain D-Mart in March.

Other returnees on the list are Future Group's Kishore Biyani at the 55th place with a fortune of USD 2.75 billion and siblings Murli Dhar and Bimal Gyanchandani (75th, USD 1.96 billion).

Here are the top 10 richest people in India:

1. Mukesh Ambani, RIL, 38 billion USD
2. Azim Premji, Wipro, 19 billion USD
3. Hinduja Brothers, Ashok Leyland, 18.4 billion USD
4. Lakshmi Mittal, Arcelormittal, 16.5 billion USD
5. Pallonji Mistry, Shapoorji Pallonji Group, 16 billion USD
6. Godrej family, Godrej Group, 14.2 billion USD
7. Shiv Nadar, HCL Technologies, 13.6 billion USD
8. Kumar Birla, Aditya Birla Group, 12.6 billion USD
9. Dilip Shanghvi, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, 12.1 billion USD
10. Gautam Adani, Adani Ports & SEZ, 11 billion USD

with PTI inputs