Tax on the way out
₹1.68 cr
Long-term capital gains at 12.5% on ₹13.48 cr of growth, due when you sell. Leaves roughly ₹15.11 cr in hand.
Nishtha investment planWeekly2026–2051
0missed calls
Once a week for twenty-five years. You don’t pick up. So the ₹3,000 I would’ve spent working up the nerve to call again goes somewhere else instead.
Which, by 2051, becomes
0crore₹16.80 crore
- Deposits made
- 1,300
- none withdrawn
- What I put in
- ₹3.32 cr
- over 25 years
- What time added
- ₹13.48 cr
- 80% of the total
- Weekly, by year 25
- ₹85,876
- up from ₹3,000
Why the number gets so big
Three things are working at once. None of them is impressive on its own. Together they’re the whole trick.
01
A deposit left alone stops being small
Money that isn’t touched earns a return, and next year that return earns its own return. That’s compounding. The first ₹3,000 — one single missed call in week one — is not withdrawn for 25 years.
One deposit, week 1, held to year 25, at 18% a year
₹3,000₹1,88,006
×62.7
02
The deposit itself grows 15% a year
This is the step-up. As income rises, so does the weekly amount: ₹3,000 in year one, ₹10,554 by year ten, ₹85,876 by year twenty-five. It’s the difference between a modest result and an absurd one.
Same 25 years, same 18% return — step-up on or off
Flat ₹3,000 forever₹5.80 cr
Stepping up 15% a year₹16.80 cr
03
Almost all of it arrives at the end
Compounding is boring for two decades and then violent. Of the ₹16.80 cr, ₹10.57 cr shows up in the final five years alone. This is the single most important thing on this page: quitting in year eighteen doesn’t get you most of the money, it gets you a third of it.
Where the corpus stands over time
After 15 years₹2.17 cr
After 20 years₹6.23 cr
After 25 years₹16.80 cr
Where dividends actually fit
Dividends are the cash a company hands shareholders instead of keeping it. It’s tempting to treat them as a bonus stacked on top of the 18% — free money arriving quarterly. That’s the most common mistake in this kind of maths, and it’s worth getting right.
04
They’re a slice of the 18%, not an extra
Total return already equals price movement plus dividends. So an 18% total return with a 2% dividend yield means the share price rose about 16% and the rest arrived as cash. Adding 2% on top of 18% would be counting the same rupees twice.
Anatomy of an 18% total return, 2% yield
Price growth 16%Div 2%
05
AI companies barely pay any
This is the awkward part for our specific plan. Fast-growing tech reinvests its cash rather than distributing it — yields across the big AI names sit near a fraction of a percent, and some pay nothing at all. A concentrated AI portfolio is almost entirely price growth. Dividends become a real force only if you hold broad indices, banks, energy or FMCG alongside.
Roughly where dividend yields sit
Concentrated AI & growth tech~0.3–0.6%
Broad market index~1.2–1.5%
Dividend / value tilt~3–4%
06
What you do with them is the whole game
A dividend that gets reinvested keeps compounding. A dividend that gets spent leaves the machine permanently. At a 3% yield over 25 years, spending them instead of reinvesting costs almost ₹4.83 cr — not because the dividends were large, but because everything they would have earned never happened.
Same plan, 18% total return, 3% dividend yield
Every dividend reinvested₹16.80 cr
Reinvested, after 31.2% tax₹15.07 cr
Taken as cash and spent₹11.97 cr
07
In India, dividends are the expensive way to earn
Since 2020, dividends are added to your income and taxed at your slab — up to about 31% including cess. Long-term capital gains on equity held over a year are taxed at 12.5%, above a ₹1.25 lakh annual exemption. Same rupee of return, roughly two-and-a-half times the tax bill, paid every single year instead of once at the end. This is why growth options and accumulating funds beat payout options for anyone building a corpus.
Tax on the same ₹1,00,000 of return
Arrives as long-term capital gain₹12,500
Arrives as dividend, 30% slab₹31,200
Move the dials yourself
Don’t take my word for any of it. The dividend yield is carved out of the total return, not added to it — so raising it doesn’t magically raise the answer. It only changes how much of your return is exposed to dividend tax and to the temptation of spending it.
Assumptions
1,300 deposits in total
Reaches ₹85,876 a week by year 25
Price growth plus dividends, combined
Price growth: 17.5% · AI-heavy portfolios sit near 0.5%
Ends in 2051
Final value
₹16.80 cr
Before capital gains tax on exit
- What you actually deposited
- ₹3.32 cr
- 80% of the total is growth
- Dividend effect
- Nothing lost
- Every rupee stays in the machine, compounding at the full 18%
Deposits versus what they became
Total valueYour depositsGrowth (the gap)
Drag across the chart to read any year.
The call log, itemised
Every row is a year of unanswered Tuesdays. Updates with the dials above.
| Milestone | Calls | Each call | Deposited | Dividends | Worth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 52 | ₹3,000 | ₹1.56 L | ₹847 | ₹1.69 L |
| Year 5 | 260 | ₹5,247 | ₹10.52 L | ₹19,429 | ₹15.61 L |
| Year 10 | 520 | ₹10,554 | ₹31.67 L | ₹1.24 L | ₹67.09 L |
| Year 15 | 780 | ₹21,227 | ₹74.23 L | ₹4.86 L | ₹2.17 cr |
| Year 20 | 1,040 | ₹42,695 | ₹1.60 cr | ₹15.59 L | ₹6.23 cr |
| Year 25 | 1,300 | ₹85,876 | ₹3.32 cr | ₹45.04 L | ₹16.80 cr |
- Year 1₹1.69 L
- Calls
- 52
- Each call
- ₹3,000
- Deposited
- ₹1.56 L
- Dividends
- ₹847
- Year 5₹15.61 L
- Calls
- 260
- Each call
- ₹5,247
- Deposited
- ₹10.52 L
- Dividends
- ₹19,429
- Year 10₹67.09 L
- Calls
- 520
- Each call
- ₹10,554
- Deposited
- ₹31.67 L
- Dividends
- ₹1.24 L
- Year 15₹2.17 cr
- Calls
- 780
- Each call
- ₹21,227
- Deposited
- ₹74.23 L
- Dividends
- ₹4.86 L
- Year 20₹6.23 cr
- Calls
- 1,040
- Each call
- ₹42,695
- Deposited
- ₹1.60 cr
- Dividends
- ₹15.59 L
- Year 25₹16.80 cr
- Calls
- 1,300
- Each call
- ₹85,876
- Deposited
- ₹3.32 cr
- Dividends
- ₹45.04 L
The dividend column is cumulative cash thrown off along the way. Under your current setting it goes straight back in and is already inside the worth column.
Now the part that isn’t romantic
Every projection on this page is arithmetic, not prophecy. Three things could make it look very different, and you should see them before the big green number does any convincing.
A worse decade
₹7.22 cr
Same plan at 10% a year instead of 18%. AI and tech stocks have returned 15–20% recently; concentrated sectors don’t owe anyone a repeat.
The real cost
₹85,876
The weekly deposit in year 25 under a 15% step-up. That’s ₹44.66 L in one year. Capping the step-up at 10% is the version people actually finish.
The honest version of this plan isn’t 100% AI stocks. It’s a broad index doing most of the work, a tech tilt for the upside, a little in debt or gold so a bad year doesn’t end the experiment — and a step-up you can survive into your forties. Hold it in growth or accumulating options so returns compound untaxed until you sell.