By Shubham Batra and Nikunj Ohri
NEW DELHI, Sept 14 (Reuters) - India's annual retail inflation accelerated in August as price pressures spread beyond food and transport, strengthening the case for a rate hike by the central bank next month.
The August print of 4.82% was marginally higher than a 4.80% inflation that the economists were expecting in a Reuters poll and 4.45% in the previous month. It was also the highest under the new series which began in January.
The pickup in inflation ran close to
or above 4% in categories including clothing, household goods and education, while inflation in food-serving services rose to 8.41% from 7.75% in July.
Kotak Mahindra Bank's chief economist Upasna Bhardwaj said she continues to see scope for 50-75 basis points of rate hikes by the monetary policy committee, with now the odds of an action in its next meeting in October "increasing significantly".
The central bank left its benchmark policy rate unchanged at 5.25% last month, but minutes of its last monetary policy meeting showed that some RBI officials, including Governor Sanjay Malhotra, favoured a rate hike if inflation spread across segments.
The rate-hike concerns have intensified over the past month as a sustained rise in global oil prices threatens to add to inflation pressures, with Brent crude futures near $108 a barrel.
India imports nearly 85% of its oil needs, more than half of it from the Middle East, where the U.S.-Iran war has caused major supply disruptions.
Still, Asia's third-largest economy continues to be an outlier among regional peers such as Indonesia and the Philippines that have raised rates in response to higher energy prices and currency volatility.
India's food inflation climbed to 5.95% in August from 5.52% in July on the back of weak monsoon showers, with sharp increases in prices of staples such as ginger, onion and garlic.
Transport inflation accelerated to 4.60% in August from 4.43% in the previous month.
(Reporting by Shubham Batra in New Delhi; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
