“Unfortunately, not only has the taxation policy of the Indian government been pro-rich, it has also deprived India’s States of important fiscal resources — both particularly damaging in the context of the Covid-19 crisis,” the report said.

Read: Hunger Crisis Swells India Food Lines to ‘Unprecedented’ Levels

Oxfam is recommending the government imposes a 1% surcharge on the richest 10% of the population to invest in health and education. It notes that the fortune of India’s 10 wealthiest billionaires would be enough to fund the school and higher education of the nation’s children for more than 25 years.

With 84% of the households suffering a decline in income at the start of the pandemic, India is in line with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for the highest increase in poverty. In 2020, the number of poor in the south Asian nation doubled to 134 million, more than a Pew research had estimated, Oxfam said. Daily wage workers, the self-employed and the unemployed committed the most suicides, it added, citing official crime data.

The report also highlighted that the leaked Pandora Papers — a collection of 11.9 million documents detailing 29,000 offshore companies and private trusts globally created for tax evasion — found that more than 380 Indians had 200 billion rupees worth of undeclared foreign and domestic assets.

Gautam Adani had India’s largest wealth surge last year and the fifth biggest in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He added $42.7 billion to his fortune, which now stands at almost $90 billion. Mukesh Ambani’s net worth climbed by $13.3 billion in 2021, and he’s now valued at $97 billion.