India, May 27 -- Fuel price hikes and higher import duties on gold and silver could push retail inflation to 5 per cent by June, but the RBI will wait and watch till the impact of the fuel price hike settles in before tightening interest rates in the second half of the fiscal year, economists said.

Over a period of 11 days, starting May 15, petrol prices have been increased by Rs 7.38/ltr and diesel prices by Rs 7.48/ltr with some inter-city variation. These price hikes will directly cascade into impacting prices in sectors where petrol and diesel are used as inputs such as transport and storage and to some extent, electricity.

Besides, the Government on May 13 had hiked import duty on gold and silver to 15 per cent to curb non-essentia...