Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), has retained the top slot on the Forbes annual list of India’s 100 richest tycoons for the ninth consecutive year with an increased net worth of Rs 1.5 lakh crore ($22.7 billion) following the much-anticipated launch of Reliance Jio 4G services.
The launch of Jio by the oil-to-retail conglomerate this September along with a rise in the share price of Reliance Industries by 21 per cent in the past 12 months have added another Rs 30,000 crore to Ambani’s wealth.
India’s richest pharmaceutical tycoon Dilip Shanghvi retained the second spot on the list with a net worth of Rs 1.13 lakh crore ($16.9 billion). The shares of his Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries, the world’s fifth largest generics maker, witnessed a drop following which his net wealth fell by Rs 7,300 crore.
Taking the third spot in the list are the Hinduja brothers -- Srichand, Gopichand, Prakash, and Ashok – with a net worth of Rs 1.02 lakh crore ($15.2 billion). The multinational conglomerate witnessed a rise in the net worth from Rs 99,000 crore ($14.8 billion) last year.
The list is followed by tech magnate Azim Premji at fourth spot, construction mogul Pallonji Mistry at fifth, steel baron Lakshmi Mittal sixth, Godrej Family at seventh spot, Indian tech pioneer and co-founder of HCL group Shiv Nadar at the eighth rank.
Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of Aditya Birla Group came in at the ninth spot while Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman of Poonawalla Group, stood at tenth spot.
The most remarkable name in the list, however, is Acharya Balkrishna, co-founder of Patanjali Ayurved with yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who has now marked his entry in the Forbes’s list at the 48th spot with a net worth of Rs 16,700 crore ($2.5 billion).
The minimum amount required to grab a spot in the list was Rs 8,400 crore ($1.25 billion), up from Rs 7,400 crore ($1.1 billion) last year.
