With an astounding 152% jump in his wealth to ₹44,000 crore, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani has made his way into the list of 10 richest Indians, according to a latest report by China-based luxury publishing group Hurum. Reliance Industries' Mukesh Ambani retained his position at the top, reported The Times of India.
"The stock market boom has driven Indian entrepreneurs to record heights. The people on the India rich list tell the story of India's modern economy," said Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher at Rupert Hoogewerf.
Here's the list of top-ten Indians for 2014-15:
| Name | Company | Wealth in Crore (₹) | % Growth |
| Mukesh Ambani | Reliance Industries | 1,65,000 | 37 |
| Dilip Shanghvi | Sun Pharma | 1,29,000 | 43 |
| L N Mittal | Arcelormittal | 97,000 | -4 |
| Azim Premji | Wipro | 86,000 | 12 |
| Shiv Nadar | HCL | 78,000 | 41 |
| S P Hinduja | Hinduja Group | 72,000 | - |
| Pallonji Mistry | Shapoori Pallonji | 63,000 | 24 |
| K M Birla | Aditya Birla Group | 62,000 | 16 |
| Sunil Mittal | Bharti Mittal | 51,000 | 9 |
| Gautam Adani | Adani Enterprises | 44,000 | 152 |
Adani Enterprises is the nation's largest private trader of coal who also manages India's largest port in Mundra, Gujarat.
When Narendra Modi was chief minister of Gujarat, Adani built SEZs besides buying mines in Indonesia and Australia to ensure his firm had continuous supply of coal for its thermal power plants in India.
Before the Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi had accused Adani of purchasing land at very cheap prices -- as low as ₹1 per square metre -- when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, but he dismissed the charges saying that Congress ministers were misinformed about the company's business deals.
"Adani group had been buying land ten years before Modi came to power, under the then Congress regime, and has been developing Mundra port since then. Land was then purchased at ₹1 per sq metre. Under the Modi government, we brought land at ₹15 per sq m. All this was non-agricultural and barren land on which development costs were considerable. There was no preferential treatment," he told CNN IBN.
However, Adani certainly believes that his empire has benefitted from Modi's emphasis on economic development, but declined the speculation of undue favours. He adds that cooperating with the government does not make him a crony capitalist.
A college dropout and self-made industrialist, Adani aims to become India's largest private power company.
