Saturday, January 23, 2016

Selling Pollution Masks is the New Big Business in Delhi


Businessman Jai Dhar Gupta has begun selling pollution masks last year in India and may buy stake in the US firm that owns rights to the products. Murky air means money for New Delhi businessman Jai Dhar Gupta.


The 43-year-old Wharton graduate began selling pollution masks last year in India, home to some of the planet’s most toxic cities. Gupta reckons he’ll sell 70,000 from January to March—as much as the whole of 2015—and may buy an equity stake in the US company that owns the rights to the products.

Real time air quality and air quality index in Delhi

“India is going to be the biggest market for the masks,” he said in an 11 January interview, adding he plans to manufacture and export them from India. Gupta wants to expand into products such as in-car air purifiers and is targeting $30 million in total sales for his company, Nirvana India Pvt. Ltd, by March 2017.

From masks to purifiers and even nebulizers that ease lung spasms, India is seeing a spurt in purchases of products designed to deliver a basic human right: the ability to breathe. Sales of filters that trap tiny, harmful airborne particles surged in 2015 on top online retailers Flipkart and Snapdeal.com. Nebulizer makers expect annual growth of as much as 30%.

Pollution readings in New Delhi over winter rivaled those in Beijing, the poster child for dirty air. Measurements byBloomberg News sometimes reached as much as 45 times the World Health Organization’s safe limit for PM2.5 particles, which can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream.

Read the full article @ Live Mint

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