A Wireless sensor network consists of many devices called as sensor nodes which communicate with each other, to sense the parameters of the environment in which they have been deployed. Sensor nodes communicate with each other using wireless communication techniques and these techniques are governed by routing protocols. Traditional routing protocols cannot be used in WSNs because of the inherent nature of WSNs that distinguishes it from other wireless networks. Performance of the Wireless

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... r network depends on the routing protocol hence an extensive survey of the challenges and issues faced during the design of the routing protocols is presented in this paper. Major categories of routing protocols are discussed in detail in this paper. Energy efficient routing protocols are emphasized further.