Under its ambitious urban infrastructure development scheme of 63 cities - Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) — the urban development ministry has come out with the first set of Draft Rating Reports (DRRs) on credit-worthiness for 46 of the total 69 municipalities or Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) spread across 18 states and one union territory.

These DRRs indicate institutional credit rating of ULBs to provide a reference point to potential lenders — revealing their credit-worthiness by providing an assessment of its debt servicing capacities and a realistic projection of its finances. On being contacted by The Indian Express, urban development ministry secretary M Ramachandran said, “This is for the first time that all cities have been accredited. Now, cities will know where they stand (on credit-worthiness).”

The draft credit ratings of 46 ULBs, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, reveal that 14 ULBs have been assigned ‘A’ or above ‘A’ category rating. These include eight cities in Maharashtra (Nashik, Nagpur, Pune, Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai), four in Gujarat (Rajkot, Surat, Ahmedabad and Vadodara) Kolkata in West Bengal, and the union territory of Chandigarh. However, municipalities of Bodhgaya, Haridwar and Jamshedpur have the lowest rating of ‘B’ category. The 18 states included Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Karanataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and Goa. For the rest of the cities, the ratings process and the finalisation of rating reports is likely to be completed by July-end.

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