Drought is a major abiotic constraint for growing rain-fed rice in India. In the present investigation, a total of 30 rice genotypes were evaluated under drought stress and irrigated (non-stress) condition. Fifteen morpho-physiological and biochemical characters viz, root length, plant height, number of tillers per plant, panicle length, panicle weight, number of spikelets per panicle, filled grains per panicle, grain weight per panicle, 1000 grain weight, chlorophyll content flavonoids, phenols, carbohydrates, proline and plant yield were recorded on five randomly selected plants from each replication under stress and control for statistical analysis. Under both environments, association analysis revealed that the plant yield exhibited positive and significant correlation with root length, plant height, number of tillers, panicle length, panicle weight, number of spikelet’s, per panicle, number of filled grains per panicle, grain weight per panicle and 1000 grain weight. Path analysis showed direct and high positive effect on plant yield under irrigated and stress was exhibited by number of tillers per plant, panicle weight and chlorophyll content. Further, the selection of traits with positive association towards yield and other attributes will be rewarding for crop improvement programmes for development of drought tolerant lines.