Income of 84% Indian households fell in 2021 while 40 new billionaires emerged: Oxfam report

The income of 84% Indian households declined in 2021 while the number of billionaires in the country grew from 102 to 142 during the last year, non-profit group Oxfam said in a report released on Sunday.

In its report titled “Inequality Kills”, Oxfam said that in 2021, the collective wealth of India’s 100 richest people hit a record high of Rs 57.3 lakh crore. However, in the same year, the bottom 50% of the country’s population held just 6% of the national wealth.

Oxfam’s analysis during the coronavirus pandemic (March 2020 to November 2021) showed that the wealth of Indian billionaires rose from Rs 23.14 lakh crore to Rs 53.16 lakh crore. In contrast, more than 4.6 crore Indians were estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020 alone. This number was nearly half of the global new poor according to the United Nations, Oxfam said in its report.

As a remedy to the growing wealth inequality in India, Oxfam suggested imposing a wealth tax on the super rich population of India.

“It was found that by taxing just these super-rich families only 1% of their wealth, India could fund its entire vaccination programme cost of INR 500 billion [Rs 50,000 crore],” the report noted. A 4% wealth…

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