The regime of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is minting billionaires at a brisk pace, propelling a host of lesser-known entrepreneurs into the ranks of the ultrawealthy.
Reductions in corporate taxation, a record stock market rally and policy reforms designed to remove obstacles for the private sector have helped turbocharge the growth in fortunes across sectors as diverse as defense, mining and Indian traditional medicine.
And the trend shows no signs of slowing as India experiences its version of the Gilded Age. A combination of the surging economy and the government’s pro-business policies is creating concentrated pockets of wealth, even as overall inequality widens.
Countries either pursue a pro-market model of development that expands the whole sector or a pro-business model that can concentrate economic power with a few tycoons, said Deepanshu Mohan, dean of OP Jindal Global University. “The Indian government has pursued a more pro-business model,” he said.
Knight Frank estimates that the number of ultra-high net-worth individuals in India — those with a net worth of $30 million or more — will jump 50% by 2028.
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If Modi wins a third term in office, some of these nouveau riche will be as crucial as storied titans such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani in fulfilling his election promises. Titled Modi ki Guarantee, these revolve around creating jobs, building infrastructure and transforming India into a developed nation by 2047.
Here are five of the under-the-radar billionaires and nation-builders whose names you might not know — but you should.
These tycoons have seen their fortunes surging in the past 10 years and either have direct contractual relationships with the government or have benefited from seminal policies like land acquisition or infrastructure privatization. Their net worth has been estimated here for the first time by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index:
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P.V. Krishna Reddy | Managing director, Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd.
Net worth: $8.3 billion
Industries: Infrastructure, transportation, power, irrigation
Founded by Reddy’s uncle P.P. Reddy, Hyderabad-based Megha started out as a pipe maker in the late 1980s and has built itself into a diversified infrastructure conglomerate on the back of government contracts. This has propelled the Reddy family’s estimated wealth from under $2 billion in 2015 to over $8 billion.
The closely-held firm, which Reddy now helms, had an order book of 1.87 trillion rupees ($22.4 billion) at the end of September, according to Crisil Ratings. It’s building the $6.65 billion Polavaram irrigation project, a 24-meter-deep underground bullet train station beneath Mumbai’s financial district, the Zojila tunnel in treacherous Himalayan terrain and a refinery construction project in Mongolia.
Megha’s project execution has been lauded by ministers in Modi’s Cabinet, underscoring how Reddy’s work is bolstering the federal administration’s nation-building priorities. Crisil estimates India will likely spend 143 trillion rupees on infrastructure by 2030.
Megha also hit pay dirt with its 2018 acquisition of a majority stake in Olectra Greentech Ltd., an e-bus maker whose shares have surged more than 700% since. Olectra also has a 40-billion-rupee order to supply e-buses to Mumbai amid India’s push toward greener transport.
The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Did you know: Megha Group was the largest donor to Modi’s party over the past five years through electoral bonds. It has also donated lesser amounts to other Indian political parties.
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Satyanarayan Nuwal | Chairman, Solar Industries India Ltd.
Net worth: $6.9 billion
Industries: Industrial explosives, defense equipment
Nuwal, son of a government service employee, started off in 1983 as a mere trader in explosives. In the mid-1990s, Solar Industries became one of the first companies permitted to make explosives when private sector firms were allowed to enter the sector.
The billionaire, who slept at a railway station during his broke early days, has since grown the deceptively named Solar into one of India’s largest makers and exporters of industrial explosives, with a presence in at least 75 countries. While it was already a big supplier to state-run mining giants like Coal India Ltd., Solar’s revenue surged after the Modi government introduced several policy changes that led to a boom in local mining activity with greater participation by the private sector.
Solar has also diversified into making warheads, drone munitions and military explosives and has developed loiter munitions, or suicide drones.
Solar’s shares have surged dramatically in the past few years, particularly after Modi launched the Self-reliant India campaign in 2020 to bolster local manufacturing with a special focus on defense capabilities.
The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Did you know: Nuwal left school at the age of 18 and started a series of businesses, including one manufacturing ink for fountain pens.
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Karsanbhai Patelv | Chairman, Nirma Ltd.
Net worth: $6.6 billion
Industries: Consumer goods, chemicals, cement, education
Pate — hailing from the western state of Gujarat, which has produced two of the richest people in Asia — started off by making detergent powder in his backyard in 1969.
Priced then at 3 rupees (less than 1 cent) a kilogram, Patel’s detergent, which he sold door-to-door from his bicycle, cost about a quarter of what the brands owned by multinational companies were selling in India for at the time.
Patel’s innovation and price point disrupted the segment and challenged consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever Ltd. in an epic face-off that made for a business school case study. Patel has since expanded into producing chemicals like Alkyl Benzene, sodium silicate and soda ash.
In 2014, Nirma entered cement manufacturing and has since spent over $2 billion to scale up. It acquired Emami Group’s cement and grinding units in 2020 and facilities from LafargeHolcim in 2016.
Last year, Patel increased his empire further by buying a 75% stake in active-pharmaceutical-ingredient maker Glenmark Life Sciences Ltd. for $680 million.
The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Did you know: Patel named his washing powder, Nirma, after the first and last letters of his daughter’s name, Nirupama.
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Chandru Raheja | Chairman, K Raheja Corp
Net worth: $3.6 billion
Industries: Real estate, hospitality, retail, power utilities
While the real estate baron inherited a small business from his father, he and his sons, Ravi and Neel Raheja, scaled the operation into a sector behemoth with over 40 million square feet of commercial properties, business parks, malls and department stores.
The K Raheja portfolio includes departmental store Shoppers Stop Ltd., Crossword Bookstores, Inorbit Malls, Chalet Hotels Ltd. and business parks and commercial offices under the Mindspace brand.
While the sector has had its share of headwinds in India, including the ban on high-value currency notes in 2016 that sucked liquidity out of the system, K Raheja has benefited from strong cash flows from its commercial real estate and hospitality businesses.
That’s reflected in Raheja’s listed stocks. Chalet Hotels has surged about 190% since its February 2019 debut, while Shoppers Stop has doubled in the past decade.
The company declined to comment on the surging wealth of its founders.
Did you know: Shoppers Stop was one of the first luxury department stores in India when it opened in 1991.
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Acharya Balkrishna | Managing Director, Patanjali Ayurved Ltd.
Net worth: $3.8 billion
Industries: Packaged food, health supplements, edible oils, media
Balkrishna owns nearly all of Patanjali Ayurved, which he co-founded with Indian yoga guru Baba Ramdev. The operation has benefited from the Modi government’s nationalist push toward traditional Indian medicines — in 2014, the administration established a dedicated ministry to promote these, called Ayush.
Modi —a dedicated yoga practitioner himself — has been promoting Ayurveda for years, and the market for Indian ayurvedic products is estimated to quadruple to 3.21 trillion rupees by 2032.
Balkrishna, often dressed in plain white clothes, oversees an empire that sells everything from herbal toothpastes to skin care products, instant noodles and jams. It was emerging as a formidable rival to Hindustan Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive India Ltd. in 2016 before its rapid growth tapered.
In 2019, his firm acquired bankrupt soy nuggets maker, Ruchi Soya Industries, now called Patanjali Foods Ltd., whose shares have surged since. Balkrishna’s holdings also include six religious television channels, including the Aastha TV network — India’s version of God TV.
While Patanjali and Balkrishna received fillip from the government policies, it has faced controversies particularly around quality control and misleading advertisements. In February, the Supreme Court of India reprimanded the company and restrained it from marketing of its supplement products as cures for illnesses and diseases. Patanjali published a public apology in newspapers last month for not complying with the top court’s directives on the misleading advertisements.
“Patanjali has been committed to promoting yoga and Ayurveda since its inception,” the company said in an emailed response. “With over 1,200 vaidya (Ayurveda physicians) and 500 scientists working together, Patanjali worked very tirelessly to establish these ancient practices globally.”
Did you know: Balkrishna has written over 200 books and has climbed three Himalayan peaks, according to his website.
Methodology: The families' net worth numbers were calculated as of May 13, based on publicly accessible information. For public companies, shares pledged as collateral were deducted from the analysis. Private companies were valued based on their latest reported financial results and financial ratios of publicly traded peers. Privately held real estate was valued using latest market prices and analysis of market performance data from property consultancies.