As part of its `Home Care' range, the company plans to launch five litre aluminium cylinders for oxygen supplies. "We will be doubling our nitrous oxide (used in anaesthesia) which adds 10 times more value than oxygen," Pandya said.

BOC India has just launched a new device for long-term oxygen therapy required by patients suffering from lung, heart and sleep disorders. It has tied up with AirSep Corporation of the US to sell the `oxygen concentrator' in India.

The machine is priced at Rs 65,000 but will be sold at a discounted rate of Rs 60,000 to government institutions and primary health centres, Pandya said. It is basically a miniaturised pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plant. "The technology jump is like the large spool tape recorder being compressed into a walkman," the managing director said.

According to Pandya, the company proposes to import machines worth about Rs 10 crore in the next two years which would be the development phase. "The product is like a white good and can easily be afforded by at least two per cent of the country's population. Later on, if we find that it makes greater economic sense we may consider having a manufacturing facility here," he said.

Globally, AirSep sells nearly 2,50,000 oxygen concentrators every year out of which about 70 per cent is sold in the US market. According to Joseph Priest, the president and chief operating officer of AirSep, Japan is the second biggest market where about 90,000 units were sold last year.

Pandya said that expenditure on healthcare in India would grow exponentially once the insurance market opens up and professional players shoulder the burden of healthcare costs. India's current expenditure on healthcare is about three per cent of GDP, he added.