With the climatic changes, occurrence of drought has become a major problem in agriculture, which leads to scarcity of surface as well as groundwater which negatively affects the physiological responses of plants. Therefore, farmers need to find ways to preserve groundwater for dry years. Groundwater can be preserved for dry years by reducing groundwater withdrawals by fallowing the crops with higher water use efficiency. A symbiotic relationship between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and plants, which is an adaptation strategy, to cope with water stress by increasing plant water use efficiency. Proline accumulation in plants is associated with the water stress. Objectives of this research were to study the effect of AMF inoculation on physiological plant responses and on leaf proline concentration as a strategy to increase sustainable use of water during drought. Pot experiment was carried out by adding AMF and without adding AMF. Four water levels, 50 ml, 100 ml, 150 ml and 200 ml were applied daily in respective treatments with four replicates. Statistical analysis revealed that treatments were significantly different (P < 0.05) for the number of leaves, number of pods, relative growth rates, leaf area index, rate of photosynthesis, total number of seeds, fresh weight of seeds, dry weight of seeds, dry weight of shoot, dry weight of roots, percentage AMF colonization, soil moisture, soil pH and leaf proline concentration. Treatments were not significantly different for root and shoot phosphorus concentration. With the 50 ml of daily irrigation, AMF added plants were shown comparatively higher growth and yield than non-AMF added plants. Considering all the measured parameters it can be concluded that AMF could increase growth and yield of plants even under water stressed conditions. Therefore, AMF can be used as field inoculants to increase the sustainable use of groundwater during drought.