a reserve bank of india rbi logo is seen at the gate of its office in new delhi india november 9 2018 reutersaltaf hussainfile photo bengaluru sept 23 reuters  the reserve bank of india is set to raise interest rates again next week with a slim majority of economists in a reuters poll expecting a halfpoint hike and some others expecting a smaller 35 basis point rise there was a wide consensus that the rbi will raise rates at the sept 30 meeting although there were differences over how far it would go with inflation accelerating to 7 and with the rupee weakening the rbi has lagged many of its global peers despite inflation sticking above the top end of its target range of 26 all year it has raised rates in three separate moves since may one of them unscheduled totalling 140 basis points and taking the key repo rate to 540 in the latest reuters poll economists were split five ways on what the rbi will do at its next meeting slightly over half 26 of 51 said the rbi would go for a 50 basis point hike taking the repo rate to 590 another 20 predicted a 35 basis points increase the remaining five respondents pencilled in more modest increases ranging from 20 to 30 basis points while many revised their forecasts up from an august poll and no one expected the rbi to leave rates unchanged this time there were no immediate explanations on why the central bank would opt for a smaller move right now given most of its peers are going big read more the us federal reserve just delivered its third straight 75 basis point hike and has shown no signs of slowing down sending the dollar index to a new twodecade high and more downward pressure on the rupee read more in indias case bulging twin deficits  current account and fiscal  in the wake of a stronger dollar are likely to place a greater premium on macro stability despite the visible scarring from the pandemic said sajjid chinoy chief india economist at jp morgan but a food price surge in recent weeks and a hawkish fed will induce the rbi to move 50 bps instead of 35 bps at the september meeting and be forced to act again in december taking the terminal rate closer to 625 50 bps higher than the globalrecession outcome that we had envisaged however the poll showed the rbi taking a softer approach with rates with no clear majority on where it will stop hiking but with median forecasts showing the repo rate at 600 in each quarter through end2023 meanwhile the rupee  down nearly 9 this year hit an alltime low of 8086dollar on wednesday lower than analysts had predicted in a separate reuters poll a weaker currency is likely to make imports more expensive and keep inflation elevated for longer the survey also showed inflation staying above the top of the rbis tolerance range until the first quarter of 2023 despite gdp growing 135 last quarter on a year ago which made india the worlds fastestgrowing major economy the pace of expansion was forecast to halve this quarter to 62 and further slow to 44 in the following two quarters that may be one reason why the rbi is not following the same pace as other major central banks over 60 of analysts 23 of 38 who answered an additional question said a slowdown in economic growth would play a larger than normal role in the rbis deliberations on interest rates by the end of this fiscal year economists expected growth to average 62 and 65 over the next two years the poll showed reporting by arsh tushar mogre polling by anant chandak devayani sathyan and veronica khongwir editing by hari kishan ross finley and raju gopalakrishnan