These days a lot of things are said and written about billionaire industrialists of India like Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar and others but do you know that first billionaire of independent India was not a businessman. The man, who is the first billionaire of India used diamond worth Rs 100 crore as paperweight but he was a miser and did not keep cleanliness around him and lived in extreme dirtiness. The title of being the first billionaire of India is held by Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan of Hyderabad. Nizam Ali is the first billionaire of India as we have good records of his immense wealth and properties. There may be many rulers who had more money than Nizam Ali but no concrete records are available about their riches and that’s why we can say that Nizam Ali was the first billionaire of India. Nizam Ali of Hyderabad was named as "The Richest Man in the World" by Time magazine in its February 22, 1937 issue. Nizam Osman Ali was the owner of immense wealth and according to reports, over Rs 3 billion of Nizam Ali are still deposited at a bank in England.
But Nizam Ali was a miser and he used to wear very simple clothes. According to reports, Nizam Mir Osman Ali’s bedroom was cleaned only once a year. He did not like to spend money on feeding his guests and despite enormous money Nizam Ali’s used to entertain his guests only with one biscuit and a cup of tea.
Osman Ali Khan became the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1911. When India became independent on August 15, 1947 and Hyderabad was merged with India, he remained in this position till then. The total net worth of Nizam is considered to be USD 230 billion i.e. Rs 17.47 lakh crores
Nizam Ali had his own currency and he also used to own a private airline. He had 100 million pounds of gold, 400 million pounds of jewels. The Nizam gifted Queen Elizabeth II necklace studded with 300 diamonds in her marriage. Nizam Ali was the owner of Golconda diamond mines and they were his biggest source of income.
During that era, Nizam Ali was widely considered as one of the world's wealthiest people of all time. His fortune is estimated to be around Rs 1700 crore in the early 1940s which in 2023 converts to around Rs 29,57,70 crore. According to reports, Nizam Osman Ali was the owner of 50 Rolls-Royce cars, including the Silver Ghost Throne Car. He also owned many super expensive diamonds like Koh-i-Noor, Hope Diamond, the Darya-e Nur, Nur-Ul-Ain Diamond, Princie Diamond, Regent Diamond, and Wittelsbach Diamond.
