[1] Depending on their areas of operation, institutions have been ranked under 11 different categories – overall, university, colleges, engineering, management, pharmacy, law, medical, architecture, dental and research.

[6] The 2019 NIRF ranking was released on 8 April 2019 in 9 categories: Overall, Universities, Engineering, Colleges, Management, Pharmacy, Medical, Architecture, and Law.

[9] MHRD organized a one-day workshop on 21 August 2014 on evolving methodologies for the ranking of institutions of higher education in India.

The initial draft of the report was prepared by Surendra Prasad, chairman, National Board of Accreditation and Member of the core committee.

[14] The following are some of the recommendations of the core committee:[10] The approved set of parameter groups and the weightages assigned to them in respect of institutions offering programmes in engineering, management, pharmacy and architecture are given in the following table.

[24] Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi raised objection on 2017 NIRF ranking, accusing it of being based on incomplete data.

Both institutions have almost the same budget but the same amount of money caters to a large number of students, teachers and infrastructure at BHU.