operations, chemical and automobile industries, and modern agricultural practices involving various agrochemicals. Due to these ongoing and incessant processes, prolific release of heavy metals has resulted in substantial contamination of soils. Metals accumulated in soils above critical levels (Table 1), affect microbial population, their activities and biodiversity and soil fertility; thus disturbing the proper functioning of the soil ecosystem. Of different heavy metals, chromium and its various forms have shown more deleterious impact on soil microbial activity and fertility. Also, chromium and its derivatives affect the overall development of plants through histological alterations, halting physiological activities and decreasing biomass. Among diverse soil microbes, plant-growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) producing plant-growth regulators, mineral solubilizers, phytohormones, and various secondary metabolites have been reported to expedite the plant-growth and development and soothe plants against various environmental stresses including metal stress. Moreover, they have shown excellent results in reducing metal toxicity vis-a`-vis promoting plant-growth when used as inoculants. With current state of knowledge, this review focuses on recent advancements in functional roles of PGPB in chromiumstressed soils in accelerating growth and development of plants and phytoremediation of chromium in tandem. Other heavy metals have been excluded from this discussion as chromium and its derivatives are the most commonly detected metal contaminants at the polluted sites and produce pronounced mutagenic and carcinogenic effects on organisms even at low concentration (100 lg kg1)