ICRA’s Infrastructure Sector Ratings encompass the ratings assigned to debt programmes of issuers in the power, roads, telecommunications and other such infrastructure related sectors. Given the huge funding requirement in these sectors and the growing inability of the Government, both at the Centre and State, to fund such projects, private sector initiatives in infrastructure projects has come to assume paramount importance. At the same time, infrastructure projects are capital intensive, involve high leveraging, and have a long gestation period. Such projects require innovative structuring to make them bankable. ICRA, therefore, expects that ratings in this sector will increasingly gain importance both from the issuers’ and the investors’ perspective. The rating process involves an assessment of the fundamental viability of the project, being financed, a rigorous analysis of the political, legal and regulatory environment affecting the sector, and the contractual framework for mitigating risks. The rating process also entails assessment of the specific credit enhancement mechanisms that the issuer may put in place to achieve a higher rating compared with the one that would have otherwise achieved.