Carbon sequestration in tropical soils has potential for mitigating global warming and increasing agricultural productivity. We analyzed 26 long-term experiments (LTEs) in different agro-climatic zones (ACZs) of India to assess the potential and cost of C sequestration. Data on initial and final soil organic C (SOC) concentration in the recommended N, P and K (NPK); recommended N, P and K plus farmyard manure (NPK+FYM) and unfertilized (control) treatments were used to calculate carbon sequestration potential (CSP) i.e., capacity to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) by increasing SOC stock, under different nutrient management scenarios. In most of the LTEs wheat equivalent yields were higher in the NPK+FYM treatment than the NPK treatment. However, partial factor productivity (PFP) was more with the NPK treatment. Average SOC concentration of the control treatment was 0.54%, which increased to 0.65% in the NPK treatment and 0.82% in the NPK+FYM treatment. Compared to the control treatment the NPK+FYM treatment sequestered 0.33MgCha −1 yr −1 whereas the NPK treatment sequestered 0.16MgCha −1 yr −1 . The CSP in different nutrient management scenarios ranged from 2.1 to 4.8MgCha −1 during the study period (average 16.9 yr) of the LTEs. In 17 out of 26 LTEs, the NPK+FYM treatment had higher SOC and also higher net return than that of the NPK treatment. In the remaining 9 LTEs SOC sequestration in the NPK+FYM treatment was accomplished with decreased net return suggesting that these are economically not attractive and farmers have to incur into additional cost to achieve C sequestration. The feasibility of SOC sequestration in terms of availability of FYM and other organic sources has been discussed in the paper.