13Long-term irrigation of agricultural fields with distillery effluent (DE) may alter the physical, 14 chemical and biological properties of the soil. Microorganisms are critical to the maintenance 15 of soil health and productivity. However, the impact of DE irrigation on activity and 16 taxonomy of soil microorganisms is poorly understood. Here we studied plant-growth-17 promoting (PGP) traits and taxonomic composition of bacterial communities in agricultural 18 soil irrigated with DE in conjugation with irrigation water, using cultivation-dependent and -19 independent methods. Most of the bacterial isolates obtained from DE irrigated soil were 20 found to display PGP traits (phosphate solubilization, siderophore, indolic compounds and 21 ammonia production). Diverse bacterial taxa were found in both culturable bacterial 22 community and 16S rRNA gene clone library, which belonged to bacterial phyla 23 Proteobacteria (Alpha-, Beta-and Gamma-subdivisions), Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, 24 Acidobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Gemmatimonadates. Overall, these results indicate that 25 PGP traits and taxonomic diversity of soil bacterial communities were not severely impacted 26 by DE irrigation.27 28