Role of cold rolling texture on the tensile properties of the cold rolled and cold rolled and annealed AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel is described here. The solution-annealed stainless steel plates were unidirectionally cold rolled to 50, 70 and 90% of reduction in thickness. The cold rolled material was annealed at 500-900 A degrees C annealing temperatures. X-ray diffraction technique was employed to study the texture evolution in cold rolled as well as cold rolled and annealed conditions. The texture components that evolved were translated into slip transmission number 'lambda' and Schmid factor 'mu'. These two parameters were correlated with the tensile properties of the material. The tensile properties were evaluated under all processing conditions. Softening of the cold rolled material was observed after annealing with increasing annealing temperatures. From the stress-strain curves, strain hardening coefficient 'n' and strain hardening rate 'I' were determined. It was found that the effect of texture on tensile behaviour could be understood clearly by strain hardening rate. Out of the two parameters, 'n' and 'I', strain hardening rate was found to be more sensitive to type of texture in the material.