International research agency Hurun on Tuesday released its Hurun India Rich List 2017 report. Topping the list Mukesh Ambani’s Rs 2,57,900 crore wealth is 50 per cent more than the GDP of Yemen. Interestingly the list saw presence of 3 Udaipurites for the first time.

The three Udaipurites are the promoters of GR Infrastructure: Vinod Kumar Agarwal, Purshottam Agarwal and Ajendra Agarwal. Vinod Kumar is ranked at 510th in the list with a wealth of Rs 1200 Crores while Purshottam and Ajendra are ranked at 571 with a wealth of Rs 1000 Crore.

Hurun India Rich List 2017 had 302 new faces. The sixth edition of the Hurun India Rich List 2017 saw 617 individuals with a cutoff of Rs 1,000 crores, compared to 339 last year. The cut off for the Top 100 has more than doubled to Rs 8,400 crore since 2013, it said.

Also storming into Top 10 for the first time, Patanjali’s Acharya Balkrishna has become the 8th richest person in the country after 173 per cent rise in his wealth to Rs 70,000 crore.

Sun Pharma’s Dilip Shanghvi retained the second place despite shares of his flagship company going down by 36 per cent. “It is rare to find a country with such a dominant richest person (Mukesh Ambani) whose wealth is thrice more than that of the no.2 in the list. We have never seen such a wide margin between the richest and the second richest in big countries that include USA, China, UK, Russia and so on,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman and Chief Researcher, Hurun Report Global.

The report credited better than expected corporate results in 2017 for offsetting the impact of demonetisation. Pharma and FMCG sector with their stellar performance doubled the number of entrants to 79 and 63 respectively.

Eklavya Juneja of Mankind Pharma is the youngest person in the list. Juneja owns 12% of Mankind Pharma which was founded by father Rajeev Juneja. Hurun India Rich List has eight self-made women this year, compared to two in last year.

With 182 individuals, Mumbai is the capital for India’s super-rich, followed by New Delhi (117) and Bengaluru (51). Ahmedabad broke into top 5 with 26 new entrants. With 22 and 11 India Rich Listers, Chennai and Kanpur respectively breaks into top 10 cities of residence for Hurun India Rich Listers. Number of dollar billionaires in India also increased to 136 from 126 last year, the report said.

The combined wealth of India’s richest is a staggering $640 billion, equating to 1/4th of India’s GDP last year and similar to the GDPs of Switzerland ($660bn), and combined GDP of South Africa ($317bn) & Israel ($340bn).

Inputs: Harun India Rich List, Business Today