The research work was executed in the different village ponds, swamps and reservoir in different districts of Chhattisgarh plains, during the year 2017-18 & 2018-19 under in-situ condition to generate morphological characterization, phenotypic & genotypic data with the objective to estimate the variability parameters, genetic divergence, association among yield attributing traits viz. plant height, plant spread, leaf length, flower per plant, petals per flower, stigma number, stamen number, seeds per fruit, and rhizome length and vase life of flower (in days) contributing component in lotus genotypes. The experimental material comprised of fifty one (51) genotypes of lotus from different districts of Chhattisgarh plains. Heritability indicates the least influenced character by environment, useful in selection for improvement. The highest heritability was recorded for number of stamen (96.70%), receptacle width (95.40%) and flower weight (95.30%). The lowest value for heritability was observed for branches per node (57.60%). Genetic advance as per cent of mean ranged from 113.9% to 20.0%. The character shows highest genetic advance in receptacle width whereas lowest genetic advancement as percent of mean was observed in branches per node. Flower numbers per plant, rhizome yield per plant are being quantitative characters are influenced by many genes and are highly controlled by a biotic and abiotic factor such as water and soil condition. The estimated contribution of various characters towards the expression of genetic divergence were petal number per flower (32.86%), stamen number (23.22%), receptacle width (9.41%), petal length (3.53%), plant spread (2.59%), leaf length (2.67%), rhizome length (2.2%), rhizome girth (2.59%), rhizome yield per plant (1.57%). These accounted nearly 100 percent of total divergence in the genotypes. Flower number per plant had high direct positive effect on stigma, pod weight, seed per fruit, plant spread, leaf width, and on number of stamen as per path coefficient analysis. Studies related to genetic divergence has been done by using Mahalanobis’s D² statistics for fifty one genotype and seven clusters were framed. Out of them Cluster I having thirty seven, cluster II with three, cluster III having six, cluster IV, cluster V, cluster VI and cluster VII includes only single genotypes. Among the seven clusters, maximum inter cluster distance was present between II & VI therefore; these clusters should be inter-crossed to create more variability and improving flower yield in lotus. Average performance of cluster for various traits showed that cluster III was most appropriate to select superior genotypes for flower yield per plant. Based on the result obtained, it can be concluded that flower per plant and rhizome yield had significant positive correlation with each other, therefore while improving flower yield and rhizome yield emphasis should be given on the characters namely plant spread, leaf length, leaf width, petal number per flower, number of branches. These potential lotus genotypes can be exploited for increasing rhizome yield which will promote lotus improvement work for Chhattisgarh state.

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