Mumbai, Feb. 17: Having kept a tight leash on prices since August last year, Tata Steel today indicated it was working on plans for an increase that could take effect from April.

?Prices will increase, and that too, for all product categories,? said deputy managing director T. Mukherjee.

Other steel players are also contemplating an increase. One firm cited the practice of making quarterly revisions to build up its case for a March mark-up.

A hike in the steel industry is expected to push up prices across sectors like automobiles, consumer durables and construction, all of which will have little choice but to ask their customers to pay that much more.

In August last year, the Tata group slashed steel prices when others were raising them, in part because it was assured of enough sales to the steel-hungry China. The cuts benefited direct customers, who account for 85 per cent of Tata Steel?s sales. After the reductions, they paid Rs 2000 less on every tonne of purchase.

After the price cut, Muthuraman announced his company would freeze prices at that level till March 2005. The company took the decision as part of an initiative to ?display its corporate responsibility at a critical time? ? a period when the government was doing everything it could to rein in the spiralling inflation rate. Other steel manufacturers soon followed suit.

A senior official told The Telegraph that since most of the annual contracts will come to an end by March 31, the planned price revision was only expected. Mukherjee said the extent of the increase is being negotiated with buyers.