Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, India's biggest carmaker by sales volume, has purchased the land

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for its fourth plant in India, with a view to roughly doubling annual production capacity to about 3 million units, the Nikkei business daily said on Sunday.

The company purchased the land in the western state of Gujarat for a new factory with capacity of about 750,000 units a year, the company's Chairman, R.C. Bhargava, told the Nikkei.

The fourth plant is slated to begin production in 2017 at the earliest and help expand exports to Europe and the Middle East, the report said. Maruti Suzuki is set to begin work by March on its third plant in Mehsana district, also in Gujarat, with production to begin in 2015, it added.

Maruti, controlled by Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp, is the leading producer of small cars in India. Two years ago, it produced every other new car sold in the nation.