Consumer inflation fell to 3.66 per cent in August, brightening hopes of a rate cut from the Reserve Bank of India later this month.The July inflation number was revised to 3.69 per cent from 3.78 per cent earlier. Economists in an NDTV poll estimated consumer inflation to fall to 3.58 per cent in August.The fall in retail inflation, which the Reserve Bank of India tracks to set rates, has added to pressure on Governor Raghuram Rajan to cut interest rates.Calls for a rate cut have grown louder after annual economic growth slowed to 7 per cent in the April-June quarter from 7.5 per cent in the previous quarter. Arvind Panagariya, the vice chairman of Niti Aayog, said last week said the economy needed 50-100 bps of rate cuts. Similar calls were made by business leaders at a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi last Tuesday.The RBI has lowered rates by a total of 75 bps since January. However, it left the policy repo rate on hold at 7.25 percent at its last meeting, tying future cuts to the inflation outlook.Retail food inflation for August however came in at 2.20 percent, higher than 2.15 per cent in July.Data released earlier in the day showed that wholesale inflation fell at a faster-than-expected annual rate of 4.95 per cent in August, its tenth straight contraction."Despite vegetable and pulses inflation being a bit higher, overall inflation is benign. Inflation trajectory will be lower than RBI's estimate. We expect the average inflation at 5.5 per cent versus RBI's 5.8 per cent estimate by January 2016. So we expect RBI to cut the repo rate by 25 basis points in September," said A. Prasanna, economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership."The risk to this call is if there is severe market volatility if the US Fed hikes their interest rate this week," he added.For the RBI, as for many other central banks around the world facing sluggish growth, much will depend on whether the US Federal Reserve raises interest rates this week for the first time since 2006. Easing policy at the same time as the Fed is tightening, however, could spur further capital outflows from emerging markets like India.The US Fed meet is scheduled for September 16-17 while the RBI's next policy review is due on September 29. (With Agency Inputs)