OBJECTIVES:  To assess the risk for developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM) patients during a period of 10 years and establish the association between various risk factors and the risk score. METHODS:  A prospective observational study conducted in a South Indian teaching hospital for a period of 6 months. Patients with type 2 DM hospitalized from October 2014 – March 2015 were included in the study and necessary data was collected from patient’s case records and interview with patients or patient’s representatives. The risk for developing CVD was calculated using Framingham Risk Score (FRS) and United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) risk engine and then the significance of association of risk factors to the scores determined. RESULTS: Out of 100 patients evaluated for their risk scores 50%, 35% and 15% were found to have low, intermediate and high risk respectively using FRS, whereas 28%,41% and 31% were found to have low, intermediate and high risk respectively using UKPDS risk engine. Analysis of data revealed that gender, age-group, smoking and total cholesterol level had a significant association to the risk score with p values 0.000, 0.001, 0.017 and 0.048 respectively but High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) level and Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) had a non-significant association. Similarly, gender, age-group, total cholesterol, duration of diabetes and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) level had a significant association to the risk score with p values 0.001, 0.016, 0.044, 0.047 and 0.015 respectively despite smoking, HDL level and SBP had a non-significant association, congruent to the FRS results. CONCLUSIONS:  Cardiovascular risk scores are useful tools in the management of diabetes. Moreover, it is indicated that the risk factors had a significant association to the scores which provides evidence that computation of CVD risk is an important part of prioritizing therapy for individuals.