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Major bottleneck in cultivation and commercialization of Jatropha curcas as biodiesel crop has been lack of high yielding varieties or hybrids for oil content and yield. Therefore, assessment of diversity at genotypic and molecular lever assumes greater significance as it is pre-requisite for any sound breeding programme. The diversity within the species of J. curcas as well as among species is also helpful in evolving high yielding varieties. Therefore, in this review an attempt has been made to gather research finding on species identity, taxonomy, geographical distribution and ecological requirement. Diversity has been assessed with available literature for oil content, yield and other agro-morphological traits for effective utilization in genetic improvement programme by means of conventional breeding, interspecific hybridization and biotechnological approaches.