Background: Cataract is the most common cause of reversible blindness worldwide. Surgical removal of cataractous lens remains the only effective treatment for management of cataract blindness. The success of cataract surgery is determined by best and earliest visual recovery. But the occurrence of postoperative astigmatism has become a major hurdle in achieving this goal. Purpose: The study was designed to compare the amount of surgically induced astigmatism following manual small incision cataract surgery with phacoemulsification. Materials and Methods: This prospective observational study conducted in a tertiary health care institution over a period of 2 years. A total of 100 eyes were randomized into 2 groups. Group 1 was operated by manual small incision cataract surgery (SICS) and Group 2 by phacoemulsification. The patients were followed up post-operatively at day 1 and 1st week and 6th week and 12thweeks. At each follow up Visual Acuity (VA), Refraction and acceptance and Keratometry were recorded and the findings were analyzed for astigmatism. Descriptive statistics and analytical statistics like chi-square test and independent sample t-test were generated. A p-value of<0.05 was taken as level of significance. Result: At the end of 12 weeks post-operatively the mean (SD) surgically induced astigmatism of the phacoemulsification group (0.48±0.14 D) was found to be significantly lower as compared to the SICS group (0.93±0.28D) (p<0.05) Conclusion: The result of the study shows that phacoemulsification is the better technique to control surgically induced astigmatism as compared to manual small incision cataract surgery.