New Delhi, April 4: Tezpur University has figured among the top five universities in India, beating Delhi University and Visva Bharati in the first-ever domestic ranking of institutions released by the Union government today.

According to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bangalore, was ranked the top university in the country followed by the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. Jawaharlal Nehru University ranked third and the Central University of Hyderabad fourth.

Delhi University was in sixth place, followed by Banaras Hindu University (7th), Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, (8th), BITS Pilani (9th) and Aligarh Muslim University (10th).

About 3,500 institutions, which participated in the domestic ranking, were judged by their performance in the areas of teaching, research publication citation, students from other states, women students, economically backward students, placement, mean salary, peer rating and perception, among others. The NIRF published the ranking in categories of general universities, engineering institutions, management institutions and pharmacy institutes.

A few days ago, Tezpur University was judged the best university among 40-odd central universities and conferred the Visitor's award. The university has made remarkable progress in the last 22 years since its inception. Vice-chancellor Mihir K. Chaudhuri said the university, located in a rural destination, has been quietly doing research and innovation work. "For the last nine years as the vice-chancellor, I have got tremendous support from my teachers. We work without much noise. We have a clear vision on the research we need to do," he said.

"We at Tezpur University are happy to be ranked fifth among the universities in India. We feel encouraged that the hard work our faculty, students and staff have put in, led by our vice-chancellor Professor M.K. Chaudhuri, has been recognised nationally," Rajeev Doley, chairman, media cell, Tezpur University, said. "We have state-of-the-art infrastructure in our institution and a host of good practices on campus."

Between 2012 and 2015, the university published more than 800 research papers in globally reputed journals like Elsevier. Students and faculty received prestigious academic assignments in globally reputed universities such as Queen's and Harvard and received national and international recognition. Besides, several faculty exchange programmes on locally relevant areas were held and three villages were adopted as part of an outreach programme.

Gauhati University (22nd), Dibrugarh University (74th) and Assam University (77th) have also found place among the top 100 universities.

Gauhati University vice-chancellor Mridul Hazarika said, "Tezpur University has a basic advantage of being small and compact because their research and student performances are well-managed. In our (Gauhati University) case, we have 345 colleges affiliated under us which is too much of a burden. Moreover, their funding pattern is good while we are almost from hand to mouth with the amount of funds we receive."

On Gauhati University coming 22nd, Hazarika said, "Our score is 68.58 per cent which is quite decent provided the limited funds we receive. In terms of state universities, we are fourth, just after Punjab University, Bharathiar University and Goa University."

Among the management institutions, IIM Bangalore was ranked number one while Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Manipal, was ranked the top pharmacy institution.

Some academicians were unhappy as there was no separate category for law universities.

HRD minister Smriti Irani said the ranking assessment shows that women were not joining teaching jobs in large numbers, though more women are enrolled in research programmes.

The HRD ministry has asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to allow additional time of one year at MPhil and two years at PhD for women researchers to complete their programmes. Maternity leave of 240 days will be excluded from the course duration.