Seeing the current trend of inflation in the country, economists are expecting yet another cycle of policy rate hike coming in the next review of monetary policy in May 2011.

"We expect inflation to print in at 8.1 per cent in March and move close to nine per cent by August," HDFC Bank's Chief Economist, Abheek Barua, said.

The Reserve Bank of India has recently hiked repo as well as reverse repo rate by 25 bps each.

"Indeed, with inflation for the month of February coming in as a rude shock to the market (the reading came in at 8.3 per cent against expectations of 7.8 per cent and on top of an upwardly revised estimate of 9.4 per cent for December) at the start of the week, this is the very least the central bank could have done to assuage concerns on price pressures," said Barua.

"We expect inflation to print in at 8.1 per cent in March and move close to nine per cent by August," HDFC Bank's Chief Economist Abheek Barua said.