State-owned National Mineral Development Corporation has hiked its iron ore prices by Rs 200 a tonne for this month.

The iron ore miner, which follows a monthly pricing system, has introduced this hike both for lumps and fines.  Its current prices are Rs 4,500 a tonne for lumps and Rs 2,810 a tonne for fines, a company official said.

The price hike is in line with the global pricing of the ore and domestic demand-supply scenario.

It had last hiked prices by Rs 100 a tonne in October, keeping them unchanged in November. The October spike had come after several months of iron ore prices being either unchanged or cut.

While the company had not tweaked its prices for September, it had cut prices by Rs 200 a tonne for August.

A muted steel demand for the last few months has prompted NMDC to either slash prices or keep them unchanged in the first two quarter of the fiscal. India’s steel production grew five per cent in the first five months of the current fiscal.

Earlier, it use to determine prices on a quarterly basis, but later, after adopting a new pricing policy, it decides on a monthly basis.

It has a total production capacity of 32 million tonnes per annum from its mines in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka, with a target of ramping it up to 40 million tonnes by 2014-15.

amitmitra@thehindu.co.in