The rich in India are clearly getting richer, if new report citing data collected on the country’s wealthiest families is anything to go by.
From amongst India’s 300 most-valuable families with a combined wealth of over USD 1.6 trillion (over ₹140 lakh crore), the Ambani family, headed by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, tops the charts with wealth of ₹28 lakh crore, as per a report prepared by Hurun, in association with Barclays.
The number of families in India possessing over USD 1 billion (around ₹8,700 crore) in wealth rose by 37 to 161, with the country’s top 300 generating ₹7,100 crore of wealth per day last year and accounting for 40 per cent of India’s GDP.
The Ambanis’ wealth alone accounted for 12 per cent of the country’s GDP, witnessing a 10 per cent increase in their assets last year to retain their No. 1 spot as the richest in India.
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In close competition, the Gautam Adani-led Adani family’s wealth, however, lagged at ₹14.01 lakh crore, although it is enough to earn the family the tag of India’s most-valuable family business started by a first-generation entrepreneur.
Gautam Adani was in the news recently for stepping down as the executive chairman of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., effective August 5, 2025, and will now serve as the non-executive chairman, the company disclosed in a BSE filing. With this move, Adani ceases to be a key managerial personnel of the company.
Meanwhile, the others in the rich-circle kitty include the Kumar Mangalam Birla family, which had a 20 per cent increase in its fortunes last year to ₹6.47 lakh crore, helping it move up one place to occupy the second rank among the multi-generation families’ list.
The Jindal family also moved up a rank, courtesy a 21 per cent jump in wealth to ₹5.70 lakh crore, the report said.
The Bajaj family, however, slipped one rank to be the fourth in the list because of a 21 per cent decline in the fortune to ₹5.64 lakh crore.
Amongst cities, Mumbai has the highest contribution to housing India's rich at 91 families, followed by the National Capital Region at 62, and 25 from Kolkata.
While more than a fourth of the businesses on the list are not listed on the exchanges, the report also threw light on which businesses offered services as opposed to manufacturing, and how many young-generation owners would rather manage wealth than run a business.
Manufacturing and sales seemed to outdo services, with only 11 per cent of the businesses on the list being service-oriented while the remaining 89 per cent sold physical products.
Meanwhile, at least nine new companies were added to the list last year that preferred to run their businesses through a professional chief executive hired from outside the family. The number of such families now stands at 62.
Newer generation members also prefer to manage wealth than run a business, the report stated. Nitin Singh, Managing Director and Head of Private Bank Asia for Barclays Private Bank, said that ₹130 lakh crore of wealth was expected to transfer across generations over the next five years, and a record 71 families now operated dedicated family offices.
Interestingly, private equity has expanded its ownership of such businesses, pointed out Hurun India’s chief researcher, Anas Rahman Junaid, who gave the instance of Temasek’s buying into Haldiram’s.
While around three-quarters of the top family businesses witnessed a growth in their fortunes in the last year, US tariffs put at least 120 families at risk of export revenue losses over the next 12 months, including Arvind's denim trade, Bharat Forge’s truck axles, and Meril’s medical devices.
On the philanthropy front, the report said the top families donated only ₹5,100 crore to various causes last year, as compared with their combined wealth of ₹134 lakh crore.
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