Objective. A cross sectional hospital based survey was undertaken in rural area of Wardha District of Maharashtra to assess the knowledge, attitutde and practices pf mothers regarding diarrhea and oral rehydration therapy.Methods : 75 mothers of under-five children have been selected in the study. They were interviewed by an interviewer using a predesigned and pretested questionnaire. 69.3% of them had a per capita income of less than rupees 500 where as 68% knew the correct definition of diarrhea. Only 5.3% had aware that diarrhea leads to dehydration and 90.7% knew ORT and ORS was easily available to the majority, but the rest practiced ORT.Results : Nearly 1/3rd of mothers were mixing ORS in the wrong fluid. Nearly half of the mothers were not practicing adequate hand washing, 32% were using feeding bottles and 2/3rd of them were not boiling the feeding bottles.Conclusion : The maternal knowledge towards diarrhea and ORS was inadequate in the population studied and there was a big gap between actual and desired practices.