India's top car maker, Maruti Suzuki India Limited has increased the price of its vehicles by around Rs 8,000 across all group.

However, the cost of Maruti's small car Alto K10 has been kept the same.

The car manufacturer has blamed the continuously increasing raw material rates as the major reason for the price increase.

In December 2010, Maruti had declared that it would increase the price of its cars in the country in January because of sharp increase in the essential input materials comprising steel, natural rubber as well as copper.

Maruti though has not disclosed the range of this increase at that juncture.

The Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) managing executive officer (Marketing and Sales) Mayank Pareek stated, "Yes, we did increase the prices on January 17 ranging between 0.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent."

While detailing the sharp increase in the rates of necessary input materials, Mr. Pareek said during December 2010, "The price of natural rubber, which used to be Rs 100 per kg, has gone up to Rs 200 per kg. Copper price has increased by 12-15 per cent and steel has also seen a similar increase."