Phosphorus is one of the major nutrients, second only to nitrogen in requirement for plants. Most of phosphorus in soil is present in the form of insoluble phosphates and cannot be utilized by the plants (Pradhan and Sukla, 2006). The ability of bacteria to solubilize mineral phosphates has been of interest to agricultural microbiologists as it can enhance the availability of phosphorus and iron for plant growth. PGPR have been shown to solubilize precipitated phosphates and enhance phosphate availability to rice that represent a possible mechanism of plant growth promotion under field conditions (Verma et al., 2001). In comparison to non-rhizospheric soil, a considerably higher concentration of phosphate-solubilizing bacteria is commonly found in the rhizosphere (Raghu and MacRae, 1966). In our experiments, only PGT3 isolate was able to solubilize phosphate in the rhizosphere soil (Table 5). Furthermore, this isolate was found to be medium producer of IAA. It is important to note that several phosphate-solubilizing bacilli occur in soil (Skrary and Cameron, 1998) but their numbers are not usually high enough to compete with other bacteria commonly established in the rhizosphere (Lifshitz et al., 1987).