NMDC increased iron ore lump and fine prices by Rs 150 per tonne. TRK Rao, commercial director at NMDC, spoke to CNBC-TV18 about the recent price hike.

"It’s about 5 percent increase over last month both in Bailadila (in Chhattisgarh) and Karnataka," said Rao.

“Price hike has been necessitated because there has been an increase in international iron ore prices,” he added.

Rao further said that the hike in iron ore prices were in-line with higher sponge and pellet prices.

On the sales volume front, Rao said, “Last year we did around 36 million tonne. We want to do this time 37.5 and we would need run rate of 3.7 million tonne per month.”

"We hope to break even on pellet plant with 7.8 lakh tonne volumes by FY20," said Rao.