India’s Inflation Accelerates More Than Estimated to 8.98%

India’s inflation accelerated more than economists estimated in March as the cost of fuel and manufactured goods rose, putting pressure on policy makers to raise interest rates in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The benchmark wholesale-price index rose 8.98 percent from a year earlier after an 8.31 percent gain in February, the commerce ministry said in a statement in New Delhi today. That exceeded all 28 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey, where the median forecast was for an 8.36 percent increase.