Coronavirus India

India's super rich face criticism for not giving more in second wave

Unlike in first wave, their role now mostly symbolic or focused on steps like helping boost oxygen supply

A body being carried to an open-air crematorium set up for coronavirus victims, inside a defunct granite quarry on the outskirts of Bangalore on Saturday. As India's Covid-19 crisis deepens, some of its large corporate houses have rolled out help. Co
A body being carried to an open-air crematorium set up for coronavirus victims, inside a defunct granite quarry on the outskirts of Bangalore on Saturday. As India's Covid-19 crisis deepens, some of its large corporate houses have rolled out help. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A body being carried to an open-air crematorium set up for coronavirus victims, inside a defunct granite quarry on the outskirts of Bangalore on Saturday. As India's Covid-19 crisis deepens, some of its large corporate houses have rolled out help. Co
The Mahindra Group has rolled out an "Oxygen on Wheels" initiative to help Covid-19 patients struggling to get oxygen. PHOTO: ANAND MAHINDRA/ TWITTER
A body being carried to an open-air crematorium set up for coronavirus victims, inside a defunct granite quarry on the outskirts of Bangalore on Saturday. As India's Covid-19 crisis deepens, some of its large corporate houses have rolled out help. Co
Conglomerate Tata Group has contributed cryogenic containers (left) during India's Covid-19 crisis. PHOTO: TATA GROUP/FACEBOOK

In a country that is home to the world's third-largest number of billionaires, questions are mounting over the lack of contribution from its uber-rich to support India's fight against its crippling second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Unlike in the first wave, when several among India's super rich contributed generously, their role during the ongoing wave has mostly been symbolic or focused on measures such as boosting oxygen supply.

Reliance Industries, owned by India's richest businessman Mukesh Ambani, donated five billion rupees (S$90.4 million) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's PM Cares Fund in March last year. This time, it has focused its efforts on setting up Covid-19 care facilities and boosting oxygen availability.

Reliance claims that it accounts for more than 11 per cent of the country's total medical grade liquid oxygen production, and has said its oxygen is being provided free to several states.

But some had hoped for more from India's billionaires and wished they donated generously like Mr Azim Premji, the founding chairman of Wipro. Mr Premji, the country's most generous philanthropist, donated 10 times more than any other ultra-rich Indian, according to the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2020.

It is not as if India's super rich were battered financially by the pandemic. In fact, they got even richer while around 230 million Indians slipped below the national daily minimum wage threshold of 375 rupees during the pandemic.

According to the latest Hurun Global Rich List, India added 40 billionaires last year, taking its total to 177. Mr Ambani saw a 24 per cent jump in his fortunes and was valued at US$83 billion (S$110 billion), whereas industrialist Gautam Adani, India's second richest man, saw his wealth almost double to US$32 billion last year.

Chennai-based economist S. Subramanian wrote last week in Scroll, an Indian news portal, that just a 1.61 per cent one-off tax on less than a thousand of India's top high-net-worth individuals, whose wealth exceeds the combined gross domestic product of five South Asian countries, could pay for vaccinations for all in the 18-45 age group.

While many countries are providing vaccines for free, the Indian government has said "vaccines will not be free of cost" for those below 45 years old.

India's rich have often been criticised for not giving enough to charity.

Much of the philanthropy work is paid for through legislated corporate social responsibility (CSR), including during this crisis. It is a legally binding responsibility on large firms to spend 2 per cent of their average net profit for the past three years on CSR activities.

"The philanthropic initiatives of the Indian corporates this year to fight the pandemic are far below their potential. What they could have done is much, much more," said Professor Kavil Ramachandran, executive director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at the Indian School of Business.

Still, as India's Covid-19 crisis deepens, some of its large corporate houses have rolled out help.

The Tata Group, a salt-to-software conglomerate, has contributed cryogenic cylinders and expanded capacity in hospitals run by its companies. Its hotels have also provided beds for those who need basic medical monitoring.

The Mahindra Group rolled out an "Oxygen on Wheels" initiative to help Covid-19 patients struggling to get oxygen.

Criticism has also been directed at India's rich Bollywood actors and cricketers who, but for the exception of a few, have done little.

Actress Anushka Sharma and her cricketer husband Virat Kohli - the country's golden couple - tweeted a video last Friday calling for donations for a fund-raiser they launched on Ketto.

"As our country battles the second wave of Covid-19, and our healthcare systems are facing extreme challenges, it breaks my heart to see our people suffering," said Ms Sharma, without specifying the amount they had donated.

Some, such as senior journalist Sankarshan Thakur, called out super-rich celebrity couples for setting up fund-raisers more as a way to drive their fame and not declaring their contribution.

"India breathes because ordinary Indians have risen to help ordinary Indians, not because celebs are posting rehearsed croc tears and PR gigs," he tweeted last Friday.

What also caught attention is how many of India's uber-rich had fled before many countries instituted travel bans against Indians. A report in The Times of India claimed some had even paid thousands of pounds to get to Britain before a travel ban kicked in on April 23.

Mr Rajan Mehra, chief executive of Club One Air, a private air charter firm, and former India head of Qatar Airways, said high-net-worth corporate types and even a few politicians had left India, with Dubai being a popular destination.

"You couldn't call it a stampede, but I would say 20 to 25 per cent of air travel (in the last week of April) was rich Indians," he said, adding that those who left had no intention of returning in the next couple of weeks. "Maybe by early or mid-June, they may come back... by then things would have tapered off with this wave."

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 10, 2021, with the headline India's super rich face criticism for not giving more in second wave. Subscribe