Wipro chairman Azim Premji is India's wealthiest billionaire. Premji has added Rs 12,235 crore (Rs 122.35 billion) to his wealth this year, taking his net worth to Rs 31,198 crore (Rs 311.98 billion).
Premji has been at the top of the rich list five times in the last six years, being briefly displaced from the top by the Ambani brothers, Mukesh and Anil, last year.
Business Standard's The Billionaire Club annually ranks the wealth of India's billionaires. This year, the collective wealth of India's 178 billionaires amounted to Rs 1,85,800 crore (Rs 1,858 billion) on August 31, 2004 -- Rs 55,500 crore (Rs 555 billion) more than what they had a year earlier.
The booming stock market has spawned scores of new billionaires. As many as 55 new billionaires entered the list this year. At the end of August 2004, their collective net worth was Rs 14,751 crore (Rs 147.51 billion).
This time, Mukesh and Anil Ambani have fallen back to second place, with a combined net worth of Rs 24,172 crore (Rs 241.72 billion).
Sunil Mittal is ranked number three among billionaires, with wealth of Rs 12,552 crore (Rs 125.52 billion). Shiv Nadar rode the technology boom with a 84 per cent rise in his net worth. His net worth of Rs 7,929 crore (Rs 79.29 billion) was enough to elevate him to the fourth place, up from fifth last year.
Nadar ranked above Malvinder and Shivender Singh, the Ranbaxy promoters, who slipped to fifth position from third on account of the relative underperformance of the share price of their listed company Ranbaxy Laboratories.
Dilip Shanghvi, whose net worth rose by Rs 1,937 crore (Rs 19.37 billion) to Rs 4,965 crore (Rs 49.65 billion), remains at number six. Kumar Mangalam Birla is number seven this year.
Hero Honda chairman Brijmohan Lall Munjal, is ranked eighth this year, up from 14th the previous year. Zee group chairman Subhash Chandra is the ninth richest Indian, down from the eighth richest in the previous year. Cipla chairman and managing director Y K Hamied is ranked No. 10.