Fifty S1 families of sunflower were evaluated for several seedling traits using three types of selection indicades i.e., Smith-Hazel index, desired gain index and restricted selection index. Six seedling traits namely emergence percentage, emergence index, fresh shoot lenght, fresh root length, fresh root weight, shoot weight and dry shoot weight were included in all the indices as secondary traits. The effiency of three types of selection indices was compared in terms of expected gains expressed in genetic standard deviations. It was observed that desired gain root length was more efficient than Smith-Hazel and restricted selection index as it predicted desirable correlated responses in all the seedling traits