The practice of granting corporate governance (CG) rating and bestowing CG awards should be kept "on hold" till a large number of Indian corporates imbibe these norms in substance, Industrial Development Bank of India CMD M Damodaran said on Wednesday.

The idea of rating governance practices in companies is ahead of its time and run the risk of being used as crutches by lenders instead of conducting a thorough appraisal of the corporate proposals for projects, Damodaran said at an interactive meeting organised by Asian Centre for Corporate Governance, in Mumbai.

Rating for governance should be put off till more entities start practising CG more in content than as a checklist compliance with the listing agreement, he added.

Similarly, awards to honouring companies for governance should not bestowed for some time to come. The governance practices are not terribly good and a lot more ground needs to be covered, he added.