Aim: comparative analysis of NESTED PCR and CBNAAT in patients of pulmonary tuberculosis. Materials and methods: this comparative study was conducted at Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Sri Amritsar on 60 pulmonary tuberculosis patients who include 30 patients who were sputum positive and 30 sputum negative patients. Routine blood examination including and sputum smear examination was done in these patients. Further evaluation was done by CBNAAT and nested PCR Results: Overall mean age of study population was 45.52±19.15 years (mean ± SD). 61.7% (37 out of 60) patients were male. Among sputum positive group overall sensitivity of CBNAAT and Nested PCR was 88.0% (68.78, 97.45), 74% (47.62, 92.73) with specificity of 80.0% (28.36, 99.49), 21.43% (4.66, 50.80) and sputum negative group overall sensitivity of CBNAAT and Nested PCR was 85.71% (63.66, 96.95), 46.67% (21.27, 73.41) with specificity of 77.78% (39.99, 97.19), 13.33% (1.66, 40.46). Conclusion: study concluded that Xpert/CBNAAT has high sensitivity and specificity for diagnosis of both smear positive and smear negative cases when compared with NESTED PCR.