Tata’s Nano, the world’s cheapest car, will finally go on sale in India in April, seven months late.

The Indian conglomerate announced that the tiny automobile, which it said last year would be sold for a starting price of 100,000 rupees (£1,400), will be on display at Tata Motors dealerships from the first week of April, with bookings starting a week later.

The launch of the car, which was hailed as a marvel of ultra-cheap manufacturing when it was unveiled last January, stalled when farmers claimed that the main Nano factory had been built on land taken from them illegally.

Following a series of violent protests, Tata was forced to abandon the site in West Bengal, writing off up to $350 million (£245 million) in investment and scrapping the original October launch date.

The Nano was designed to draw millions of middle class Indians away from their motorcycles but analysts suggest that Tata will only be able to produce about 3,000 cars a month until the end of the year.

The main factory that will produce the 33bhp two-cylinder runabout has been transferred to the state of Gujarat in western India, but will not be completed for several months. The first Nano will instead be produced in small numbers in Pune, about 170 km north of Mumbai, and at Pantnagar in northern India.

The project has been beset with hurdles. From the outset it drew waves of dismay from environmentalists who said the last thing India's gridlocked cities need is more traffic.

Last summer, it was feared that the surging price of raw materials had scrambled the low-cost business model Tata had formulated.

Since then, commodity prices may have collapsed, but so have car sales in India amid mounting white collar job losses and a dearth of credit.

Many analysts believe that Tata, which owns Jaguar and Land Rover in the UK, will look to boost margins by making only a small number of Nanos available at the much-trumpeted price of "one lakh" (100,000 rupees) and will push more expensive versions with extra features. The base cost may also not include things that most buyers might have assumed would be included in the ticket price - such as the expense of transporting the Nano from the factory to the showroom.

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