Hinduja Group firm Ashok Leyland Ltd (ALL) will invest around Rs3,000 crore ($721 million) over the next three years to more than double its current production capacity of 84,000 vehicles.

Chennai-based Ashok Leyland, the country's second-biggest bus and truck maker after leader Tata Motors Ltd, will launch its iBus this year and also extend its range of tractors, the company said in a statement.

ALL also reported a better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter net profit at Rs181 crore, up from Rs172 crore a year earlier. Net sales rose to Rs2,562 crore from Rs2,291 crore. Operating margin rose to 10.4 per cent.

The board of directors has declared a dividend of 150 per cent at the rate of Rs1.50, on every share of face value of Re1 held, for the year ended 2007-08.

For the year-ended 31 March 2008, the company announced a net profit of Rs469.31 crore, a 6.35 per cent growth over the year-ago period. Net profit for the year stood at Rs441.29 crore while total income rose to Rs7,803.12 crore against Rs7,238.98 crore last year.

"In terms of topline, we compensated for the slowdown in the truck market by significantly improving our share of the bus market, international operations, as also the engines and spares businesses," R Seshasayee, managing director of ALL said in the statement.

Leyland, which has ventures with Japan's Nissan Motor Co for trucks, engines and components, said "Our bottomline benefited from some aggressive value engineering, sourcing initiatives and higher productivity."

Vehicle sales during the March quarter rose 4.5 per cent to 27,311 units.

Meanwhile, Ashok Leyland's bus assembly unit in the UAE will commence operations this year, with capacity being doubled to 2,000 units.