India's private billions float well above fiscal deficit of $95 b

The total net worth of India's 55 billionaires has fallen marginally to $189 billion (over Rs 10 lakh crore) in the past year, but even half this amount exceeds the country's total fiscal deficit.

As per the annual list of world's billionaires, published by business magazine Forbes, India has 55 billionaires with a total net worth of $189.1 billion. In comparison, India had 48 billionaires with collective networth of $194.6 billion a year ago.

An analysis of Forbes rankings of Indian billionaires shows that just 10 of the country’s richest put together currently command total wealth of over $100 billion — a figure higher than the estimated fiscal deficit of about $95 billion for the financial year ending this month.

India's fiscal deficit for the year 2012-13 is estimated at a little over Rs 5 lakh crore or a provisional 5.2 per cent of the country's total GDP.

Forbes has ranked Mukesh Ambani, with a net worth of $21.5 billion, as richest from India for sixth year in a row. The magazine said Ambani’s fortunes have dropped $1 billion over the past year, though he leads the billionaire pack, steering the fortunes of India’s most valuable company.

While there are only three Indians in the global top-100, the overall list has 55 billionaires this year from the country. This number has grown from 48 in 2012. It was 55 in 2011 as well.

Lakshmi Mittal, the second richest Indian has a net worth of $16.5 billion, followed by Azim Premji ($11.2 billion), Dilip Shanghvi ($9.4 billion), Shashi and Ravi Ruia ($8.5 billion) and Kumar Mangalam Birla ($7.9 billion).

Other Indians in the top ten are Savitri Jindal ($7.6 billion), Sunil Mittal ($6.8 billion), Shiv Nadar ($6.5 billion) and K P Singh ($6.3 billion).

Uday Kotak, Micky Jagtiani, Cyrus Poonawalla, Adi Godrej, Anil Agarwal, Subhash Chandra, B L Munjal, Rahul Bajaj, N R Narayana Murthy, K Anji Reddy, S Gopalakrishnan, Venugopal Dhoot, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Yusuf Hamied are on the rich list.