HCL founder Shiv Nadar emerged as the most generous person in India for the year 2022, topping the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2022 with a contribution of Rs 1,161 crore. This comes to a donation of Rs 3 crore per day. He contributed mostly to education.
With an annual donation of Rs 484 crore, Wipro's Azim Premji, who had topped the list for the past two years, comes second. Premji contribution for philanthropic purposes fell by 95 per cent year-on-year.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is third on the list. He contributed ₹411 crore.
Gautam Adani, who is India's richest man, comes only in the seventh position. He donated Rs 190 crore for philanthropy during the year.
Fifteen Indians made an annual donation of over Rs 100 crore, 20 donated over Rs 50 crore and 43 over Rs 20 crore.
Zerodha founders Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath increased their donation by 300 per cent to Rs 100 crore. Thirty-six-year-old Nikhil Kamath is the youngest philanthropist in the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2022.
The top 10 people in the list made a cumulative contribution of ₹3,378 crore for philanthropy.
The pharmaceutical industry has the largest number of philanthropists in the list, accounting for 20 per cent, followed by chemicals and petrochemicals at 11 per cent.
Driven by the pandemic, donations toward Covid relief surged by 44 times to Rs 473 crore, with 75 philanthropists cumulatively donating Rs 1,233 crore. Education is the most favoured cause with 51 self-made philanthropists.
"EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List aims at chronicling the Indian philanthropy landscape and so far the transformation is encouraging. For instance, over the last five years, the number of donors who have given more than Rs 100 crore have grown from 2 to 15, and over 50 crore have grown from five to 20. Considering the wealth creation potential of India and assuming that the billionaires keep up with philanthropy, I expect these numbers to at least double over the next five years," Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and Chief Researcher, Hurun India, said.
—With PTI inputs