Gujarat is set to become the next major automobile hub in the country after

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Chennai, Pune and Haryana. The nation’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki will firm up a location for its seventh factory in the state of Gujarat by August this year.

Top officials of Maruti Suzuki including chairman RC Bhargava and managing director S Nakanishi on Tuesday met Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and saw various sites for the new factory. The new factory is expected to take the carmaker’s capacity to three million units by 2015.

“We looked at options where we could possibly build a new plant and had a very positive interaction with the Gujarat government. We have other options as well except Gujarat so we will take a firm decision in the next three to four months,” Bhargava told Financial Chronicle through phone from Gandhinagar near Ahmedabad. He said the carmaker is yet to decide on investment or planned capacity on the seventh plant.

Maruti Suzuki is already expanding capacity from the present 1.3 million units annually to 1.75 million units by April 2012 in Gurgaon and Manesar. The company will invest Rs 3,625 crore in the expansion. A new assembly line ideally attracts an investment of about Rs 1,700-1,800 crore apart from cost of land.

Maruti Suzuki already exports its cars from Mundra port in Gujarat and a plant in the state will help save costs on transportation and logistics for shipping cars to overseas countries. The plant may just be used an export specific base for the largest carmaker. According to officials, Gujarat is keen on offering up to 500 acre of land to Maruti Suzuki.

Rivals Tata Motors and General Motors already have manufacturing plants in Sanand and Halol respectively, while Ford India is keen to build its second factory in the state. Earlier this year, top corporate houses such as Reliance Industries and Adani Group amongst others committed investments of over Rs 180,000 crore in various sectors.