Rice is the staple diet for more than half of the world's population. To meet the demands of a growing population, yield levels are to be improved. The creation of variability is a must for improving yield and to design breeding programmes. Twenty-six improved rice varieties were subjected to the study genetic variability through nine different traits. Four traits namely, number of productive tillers per plant, flag leaf breadth, number of grains per panicle and 100 grain weight had high PCV and GCV. All the traits except panicle length exhibited high heritability with high GAM. To assess the genetic diversity in terms of spatial distance and quantification, Principal component analysis and D 2 analysis were done, respectively. In PCA, out of nine principal components, the first three PC's showed maximum cumulative variability. However, the traits viz., days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height, flag leaf length, flag leaf breadth and panicle length were found to be essential characteristics creating variability. Based on D 2 statistics, 26 genotypes were grouped into six clusters. Cluster I was the largest group which comprised 13 genotypes followed by cluster II with seven genotypes. Cluster VI had the highest intra cluster distance. Maximum inter cluster distance was observed between clusters V and VI indicating a significant genetic diversity between these two clusters. The characters viz., 100 grain weight, days to 50 per cent flowering, the number of grains per panicle and flag leaf breadth contributed maximum divergence among the genotypes. Therefore, these traits may be given more importance for the hybridization programme.