Indian billionaires’ wealth grew during the lockdown period
The non-profit group Oxfam on Monday in a report to be tabled at the World Economic Forum at Switzerland’s Davos mentioned that the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the income inequalities that exists between the India’s super rich and the cores of unskilled workers out of which many of them are suffering unemployment for a long period of time and they struggle to acquire basic health care and sanitation.
The title of the Oxfam report was ‘The Inequality Virus and it said that the wealth of the country’s billionaire increased by an estimate of 35 per cent of households which suffered a varying degree of income losses and in the month on April 2020, almost 1.7 lakh people lost their job in every one hour. The report also said that the income of India’s top 100 billionaires had increased since March 2020 and when lockdown was imposed it was enough to give each of the 138 million poor people a cheque of rupees 94,045 rupees.
The report further said “The rising inequality in the country is piogant….it will take an unskilled worker 10000 years to make what Ambani made in an hour during the pandemic… and three years to make what Ambani made in a second.” Mukesh Ambani was declared the fourth richest man on the planet in August last year.
The world’s strictest lockdown was imposed and lakhs of migrant workers in the months prior and after were left without job, money and food or shelter. As the impact of lockdown became apparent to the government last year, they then announced an economic relief package worth around 20 lakh crore rupees and the PM Narendra Modi hailed it as the cornerstone of his ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’ vision.
Pursuant to the report by the Oxfam, the increase in the wealth just when the crisis began of the world’s 10 richest billionaires is “more than enough to prevent anyone on earth from falling into poverty because of the virus and to pay for the COVID-19 vaccine for everyone.” In the suggestions that Oxfam made to the government of India to address such inequalities it said that the government should try to immediately revise the minimum wages and enhance these at regular intervals. Additionally it suggested the government to impose a two percent surcharge on those earnings more than 50 lakh rupees and also introduce a temporary tax on the companies who made windfall profits during the pandemic.
The report concluded by saying “It is time for the Government of India to take specific and concrete actions to build a better future…. citizen’s voices seek a more equal future.”
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