The Hindu : CRISIL reaffirms high rating for MCH bonds

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

CRISIL reaffirms high rating for MCH bonds

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Jan. 20. The premier credit rating agency, CRISIL, has reaffirmed the double A plus structured obligation - AA+(so) - rating to the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad's Rs. 82.5-crore tax free bonds. This indicates high safety with regard to timely payment of the interest and principal obligation on the rated bonds.

CRISIL has announced the rating on the basis of the high financial performance of the MCH in the first eight months of the financial year 2002-03. During this period the Corporation's revenue registered a growth of 29 per cent, highest in the country.

Disclosing this to presspersons here on Monday, the Commissioner, Chitra Ramchandran, said the Corporation was able to achieve this significant growth rate without basically changing the framework or imposing any fresh taxes. On the revenue side the MCH had registered a growth percentage of 33.45, amounting to Rs. 59.02 crores. The expenditure on capital had increased while the cost on administration had come down, indicating internal efficiency.

The property tax collection had increased from 60.6 per cent in 2001-02 to 64.6 per cent in 2002-03. By March the Corporation would surpass the targeted Rs. 150 crores. This, the MCH was able to do by bringing into tax fold the under-assessed and un-assessed properties, restoration of anomalies and use of people-friendly technology. There was also an increase of 17.48 per cent in trade licence fee and 17.49 per cent in fees and user charges.

The MCH had revenues of Rs. 2.08 billion and an operating surplus level of Rs. 0.67 billion during April-November 2002 as compared to revenues of Rs. 1.6 billion and operating surplus of Rs. 0.37 billion for the previous corresponding period.

Ms. Chitra attributed the good performance to hard work. However, she added that all this would not make the civic body complacent as it had a long way to go.

With regard to the pre-paid parking tickets, she said the response was good. The Corporation had already sold tickets worth Rs. 25 lakhs in just ten days. This was encouraging since the revenue from parking for the whole of last year was Rs. 90 lakhs. The Tamil Nadu Government had also evinced interest in the prepaid parking system and might emulate Hyderabad, Ms. Chitra said.

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