March 9, New Delhi: With divorce rates increasing in India, it is equally important for estranged wife to take adequate measures to sustain her living standard. Alimony here plays a pivotal role for an estranged wife to have a sense of empowerment and financial freedom, if the money is managed properly.

DSP Mutual Fund has launched an alimony calculator, which asserts to guide estranged wife to understand her current and future expenses and, therefore, the corpus needed to meet expenses that will not alter her current lifestyle. Based on its inputs, however, it is advised to consult a legal advisor before taking any decisions.

The calculator gives an idea the alimony amount required by calculating expenses related to household, utilities, medical, insurance, entertainment, holiday, child support among others. It then asks her to add her income, inheritance, paternal support and current bank balance to ascertain the corpus required.

Notably, even if an estranged wife is earning lower than her ex partner’s income, she will still be granted alimony. Also in the case where she is not earning, the court considers her age, education, ability to earn to decide the amount of the alimony.

“A general lack of knowledge, coupled with emotions taking precedence over logical thinking, often lead to a skewed division of marital assets. Our alimony calculator aims to arm women with the necessary math needed to ascertain the corpus needed for her to continue her lifestyle while still being very fair to the other party,” Aditi Kothari Desai, director (sales), DSP Investment Managers said.