<p>Groundnut yield can be significantly decreased during reproductive processes and pod maturation, which are in particular susceptible to drought stress and hence there is a need to identify donors with high shelling percent, high mature pod ratio (MPR) and low mature pod yield reduction for improving yield levels of popular cultivars. Also, there is a narrow genetic diversity among present day cultivars due to inadequate use of diversity available in germplasm collection. Exploitation of trait specific germplasm in the breeding programs to address region specific challenges is necessary. Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh in India is a considered as a “Drought hot spot” as this region faces severe dry spells frequently. Hence, studying genotypic performances in such drought hot-spot locations would help in identifying actual drought tolerant genotypes. A set of 55 groundnut germplasm accessions were shortlisted based on shelling percent upon evaluating 2500 global germplasm collections under drought prone conditions of Anantapur. These selected accessions were screened for drought tolerance under drought hot spot location of Anantapur consecutively for 4&#xa0;years between 2021–2024 during rainy season. To evaluate drought tolerance, the membership function value of drought resistance (MFVD) was computed for each genotype based on yield and drought tolerance-related features (Shelling percent and MPR). Three accessions, NRCG 16492, NRCG 14082, and NRCG 5103 were identified as drought tolerant as they recorded less than 15% mature pod yield reduction under water stress with high shelling percent, high MFVD values and high mature pod ratio than check cultivars. Traits viz., mature pod yield reduction and MFVD values could be used as a selection criterion for identifying drought tolerant genotypes. These identified drought tolerant lines may be employed in breeding programs to develop drought tolerant groundnut cultivars.</p>