Water purifier maker Kent plans to launch a basic gravity-based water purifier that can compete with high-end water treatment products to remove arsenic and fluoride contaminants from drinking water.

“We are confident of bringing out this new product within a year. The idea is to make purifiers with capabilities to remove arsenic and fluoride more affordable to people in India,” Mahesh Gupta, Chairman of Kent Ro Systems, told Business Line.

He was in Hyderabad to launch its new product Kent Supreme today.

The water purifier market in India is estimated at Rs 3,200 crore and may touch Rs 7,000 crore by 2015, a recent Assocham study pointed out.

Low-cost products cater to the majority of the market as they do not require electricity and are generally gravity or chemical-based systems in the price range of Rs 500 and Rs 5,000.

The high-end products market, estimated at Rs 1,000 crore, has products using reverse osmosis, ultraviolet-based filters and microbiological treatment technologies. These products are priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 40,000, dominated by brands such as Hindustan Unilever’s Pureit, Eureka Forbes, LG, Kent, Panasonic and Okaya Power’s Nasaka brand.

Gupta said the existing range of gravity purifiers using UF membrane technology does not have capabilities to remove arsenic and fluoride, which posed a serious threat to clean drinking water availability in India.

Kent’s Rs 35 crore expansion of capacity from the current four lakh units to eight lakhs will be completed in the next three months.

Gupta said the firm will also launch its new TV ad campaign featuring Rajasthan Royals IPL team skipper Rahul Dravid and actor Hema Malini in the next two days. It is increasing its ad spends to Rs 70 crore this fiscal from Rs 60 crore last year.

>amitmitra@thehindu.co.in