Tata Motors Ltd., the maker of Jaguar and Land Rover luxury vehicles, will start accepting bookings for the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, in the second week of April.

The automaker will display the Nano at dealerships from the first week of April, Tata Motors said in a statement today. The Mumbai-based company will elaborate on the booking process on March 23, it said.

The Nano was originally planned to be launched in the last quarter of 2008, but was delayed after the company was forced to shift the manufacturing base from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat following violent protests by farmers unhappy with a compensation offer for their land. The Sanand plant will have a capacity of producing 2,50,000 cars per annum and expandable to up to 5,00,000 cars per annum.

The Nano has a rear-wheel drive, all-aluminium, two-cylinder, 623 cc, 33 PS, multi point fuel injection petrol engine. This is the first time that a two-cylinder gasoline engine is being used in a car with single balancer shaft.

The Nano was unveiled on January 10, 2008 at the Auto Expo in New Delhi and it was also displayed at the Geneva Motor Show last year.

It triggered competition, including Nissan-Renault, to announce plans for building low-cost family cars. The homegrown Bajaj Auto has tied up with Nissan-Renault to produce small car codenamed ULC (ultra low-cost) at a price tag of $2500.

Tata Motors unveiled the Nano last year aiming to sell the car at 100,000 rupees ($1,988), almost half the price of the next-cheapest model in the country. Chairman Ratan Tata’s plan to begin sales of Nano from the last quarter of 2008 got delayed as the company had to relocate its factory because of protests by farmers about acquisition of agricultural land.

The company, also India’s largest maker of trucks and buses, will sell the Nano in Europe for 5,000 euros ($6,347), Bild said, citing an interview with Tata. The carmaker will present the European version of the Nano next month at the Geneva car show, the newspaper said.

Tata Motors gained 2.6 percent to 143.75 rupees at 1:15 p.m. on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The shares have declined 10 percent this year, extending last year’s 78 percent slump.