It is aptly called “Rice is life” owing to its importance in food and nutritional security. Rice accounts for more than 50% of daily calories consumption by more than 3.5 billion people worldwide. Global rice production would rise from 763 million tonnes in 2020 to 852 million tonnes in 2035 to feed the world's ever-increasing population. This has to be achieved with decreasing arable land, water and other resources. In the past, the “Green revolution” especially in rice was accomplished by developing high yielding and fertilizer responsive varieties coupled with improved agronomic practices. Currently, rice crop reached a yield plateau owing to the narrow genetic base of currently grown varieties. Further, the rice crop is constantly exposed to several biotic and abiotic threats. Besides, climate change aggravating overall rice productivity directly and indirectly. To overcome these constraints particularly in the context of global climatic changes, it is imperative to broaden the gene pool of rice. One of the best options is to explore wild rice species to unlock the potential of wild species, as they are a treasure trove of many useful genes/QTLs for rice improvement. Several genes/QTLs for improving several agronomic and other traits were identified from wild species and deployed into cultivated rice, and many of these tagged with DNA marker systems. Genes/QTLs detected were transferred to the elite background using marker-aided selection (MAS), Marker-assisted backcross breeding, AB-QTL analysis etc. Amalgamation of modern breeding tools with conventional approaches helped to exploit treasure of wild rice in breeding modern high yielding varieties with potential quality traits.