What is a Crorepati?

Crorepati celebrationThe word “crorepati” is made up of two different words – “crore” and “pati.”

Where “crore" is the Indian Numbering System for 10 million, “pati” refers to the master or guard.

So the idea of "crorepati" kicks in when a person is the master of ten millions.

A crorepati is a person who lives in a family whose net worth exceeds ten million units of the local currency (Rupees in India). According to the data from the Income Tax Department, as many as 97,689 showed income above Rs 1 Crore in assessment year 2018-19.

Lakhpati

Like Crorepati, the word Lakhpati also has a unique inference. It is also a combination of two words – “lakh” and “pati.” Where “lakh” is the Indian Numbering System for a hundred thousand, “pati” refers to the master or guard.

The relation between a crore and lakh can be mentioned as, “One tenth of a crore is ten lakh.”

Indian Numbering System

In the southwest Asian numbering system the word "thousand" gets retired at 99,999 and from there on the counting starts by 100,000s. However, lakhs do not exist in the west.
Interestingly, not only the Indian numbering system has different names for the units, the application of commas also varies from international numbering system. Here is a pictorial representation of the same:

Indian Numbering System
British/American Notation Indian Notation
Ten 10 Ten 10
Hundred 100 Hundred 100
Thousand 1,000 Thousand 1,000
Ten thousand 10,000 Ten thousand 10,000
Hundred Thousand 100,000 Lakh 1,00,000
Million 1,000,000 Ten Lakh 10,00,000
Ten Million 10,000,000 Crore 1,00,00,000
Hundred Million 100,000,000 Ten Crore 10,00,00,000

By Shokhi Agarwal