MUMBAI, India (AP) -- The Nano, billed as the world's cheapest car, has found a new home in the Western state of Gujarat, after weeks of violent farmer protests forced Tata Motors to shutter its $350 million Nano factory in West Bengal.
"We now have a new home," Ratan Tata said Tuesday, speaking in Ahmedabad, Gujarat's commercial capital.
Tata said the factory would produce 250,000 to 300,000 Nanos initially, and that the company would do its best to launch the car by year's end, as planned.
He said the new Nano factory would further India's ambition to become a hub for small car manufacturing.
The dispute in West Bengal pitted farmers and opposition political leaders against the state's ruling Communist Party and Tata, who has a reputation as one of India's most benevolent industrialists.
Weeks of intense negotiation between the government, which acquired the land and handed it over to the Tatas, and opposition politicians deadlocked, leading Tata to pull out Friday.
Such land conflicts have become increasingly common as India struggles to industrialize without leaving millions of subsistence farmers behind.
