Agricultural sustainability and food security are major challenges facing continued population growth. Integration of existing and new technologies for the induction and exploitation of genetic diversity towards developing healthier, nutritious and productive crops is the need of the hour. Mutagenesis is a proven technology for the development of improved or novel varieties with desirable traits. Several mutant genes have been successfully explored, either directly or indirectly, to complement crop productivity. The advent of genomics approaches and plant genome sequencing has benefitted mutation discovery and mutant characterization. Plant mutant repositories are being established to serve as platforms for basic and applied research in crop improvement. This review briefly outlines the impact and molecular/genomic characterization of induced mutations in crop improvement.