In a fresh blow to the city of Prayagraj, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025 rankings—released by the Ministry of Education—have again excluded Allahabad University from the top-200 list for the seventh consecutive year.
Despite several faculty recruitments and institutional initiatives aimed at revival, the university, long celebrated as the “Oxford of the East”, remained outside the elite list for another year. (NIRF India)
There was a silver lining in specific disciplines. The university’s engineering programmes made a striking recovery, jumping from the 200–250 band last year to the 101–150 band in NIRF-2025 — an improvement of roughly 100 places.
Meanwhile, the management programmes held steady in the 101–125 band, unchanged from the previous year. Vice-Chancellor Prof. Sangeeta Srivastava attributed the engineering improvement to “collective efforts” by faculty, staff and students.
Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Prayagraj, secured a place in the overall 151–200 rank band in NIRF-2025 (i.e., it appears among institutions ranked 151–200 overall), while its engineering score placed it well within the national engineering list — reflecting continued recognition among India’s technical institutes.
How Allahabad University compares with other major institutions (context & takeaways)
National leaders (NIRF-2025 snapshot):
The top slots in NIRF-2025 continued to be dominated by long-established research and technical institutions. Among institutions featured high in the national lists were IISc Bengaluru, JNU, MAHE (Manipal), Jamia Millia Islamia and the University of Delhi — institutions that ranked in the top-10 in the universities/overall lists.
These institutions typically score highly on research, teaching resources, and perception metrics, which together drive their overall position.
Uttar Pradesh — how local peers fared:
- Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi: Placed among the leading universities in the country (ranked in the top 10 in the universities/overall category in NIRF-2025), and stayed strong across several discipline categories. BHU’s performance highlights sustained strengths in research and multidisciplinary programmes.
- Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh: Also featured among the higher-ranked Indian universities in 2025 (inside the top 10–15 range in the university list), indicating better overall scores than Allahabad University on several NIRF parameters.
- MNNIT Prayagraj: Made the overall 151–200 rank band and continues to be among the better-ranked technical institutes from the state — a position that underlines the strength of focused technical campuses relative to large, multi-faculty traditional universities.
What the comparison shows (implications for AU):
- Discipline vs overall performance: Allahabad University’s engineering jump to 101–150 shows progress in a focused area — but the university’s overall institutional metrics (which include parameters such as research output, outreach, overall perception and governance) still lag behind peers such as BHU and AMU, which score stronger across multiple indicators.
- Peer institutions with specialised strengths do better overall: Institutions that concentrate resources on research, placements and institutional governance (for example, many IITs, IISc, JNU and some state central universities) generally maintain higher overall rankings. That pattern helps explain why AU can improve sharply in engineering yet still miss the top-200 overall.
- Room for strategic focus: The NIRF results suggest AU should consolidate its gains in engineering (research, faculty, industry linkages, placements) while simultaneously strengthening research output, governance transparency and national/international collaborations — the metrics that lift a university’s overall score.
- Allahabad University: Outside NIRF top-200 overall for the 7th straight year; Engineering improved to 101–150; Management stable at 101–125.
- MNNIT (Prayagraj): Listed in the overall 151–200 band; continues to be visible among national technical institutes.
- BHU & AMU: Performed markedly better overall (BHU inside top 10 of the university/overall list), underlining differing institutional strengths within Uttar Pradesh.
- National top institutions in NIRF-2025 include research-heavy and technical leaders (IISc, JNU/MAHE/Jamia/DU among top names), demonstrating how concentrated research and resources translate to higher overall ranks.
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