Maruti Suzuki India expects to start its new assembly line at the company's Manesar factory in northern India nearly seven months ahead of its original plan, the chairman of the country's largest car maker by sales said.

"We can get part of the assembly line running by September 2011," R.C. Bhargava told, adding that some processes like the welding shop may come up late.

The local unit of Suzuki Motor Corp. had in January said it would invest Rs. 17 billion (US$ 368 million) at Manesar to increase the facility's annual capacity by 250,000 cars by April 2012 from the current 300,000.

This will increase the company's capacity to 1.25 million cars, and help ease a capacity crunch that had led to Maruti's share of the market slipping below 50% in the April-June quarter. Maruti has traditionally controlled more than half of the Indian car market with its small-car models such as the Alto, Swift, Ritz, WagonR and Estilo.

Advancing the commissioning will help Maruti to counter competition from global car makers such as Volkswagen AG, Nissan Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., which have either started selling small cars in India, or are planning to do so shortly.

It will also reduce the long waiting periods, running into months for popular models such as the Swift hatchback and Swift Dzire sedan. Mayank Pareek, executive officer for marketing and sales, had last week said the company could deliver only up to 85% of its new order bookings immediately, with the rest delivered after a lag.

Maruti sold 384,181 cars in April-July 2010, up 26% from a year earlier. Sales in the last financial year ended March rose 29% to a record 1.02 million vehicles. Maruti has factories at Gurgaon and Manesar, both in Haryana state. The Gurgaon facility can produce 700,000 cars a year.

Mr. Bhargava said Maruti will continue its investments to raise capacity as per market requirements. "We have cash reserves of more than 70 billion rupees and can fund our future expansion easily," he added.