Irrigation with saline water is an alternative to alleviate freshwater shortages in arid and semi-arid regions. However, suitable and efficient irrigation management strategies are much needed for use of saline water as irrigation in agriculture. Necessary measures need to be taken to reduce the soil salinization and its effect on agricultural productivity and sustainability. An experiment was carried out in 2019 and 2020 to evaluate the effects of saline water and nitrogen fertilizer application under two different irrigation methods on soil properties and plant nutrition. The results showed that drip irrigation (DI) with water of high salinity could effectively increase soil moisture content and reduce salinity development in root zone as compared to surface flooding (SF). The soil moisture content in DI was higher than that in SF at surface layer, with increments of 9.4%, 20.3% and 6.8% for 60, 90 DAT and harvest (S1 treatment). The high salinity irrigation water (S3) with DI lowered the soil salinity by 37.4% (60 DAT) and 32.2% (90 DAT) at 0-15 cm depth over SF. The soil salinities at surface layer with S2 and S3 in DI were 2.09 and 3.64 dS/m, respectively, whereas those with SF were 3.59 and 5.36 dS/m. The SOC at surface layer was reduced by 6.3% and 12.5% with S2 and S3 treatment. The concentration of cations and anions in soil significantly increased with the higher salinity levels of irrigation water. The results showed the higher available NPK content (0-15cm) under DI i.e., 126.2 kg ha-1, 29.8 kg ha-1 and 253.5 kg ha-1 and it reduced with saline water treatment except available K in soil. The saline water treatment (S2 and S3) reduced the total NPK content in plant and fruit. Application of 25% higher N rate (N3) over irrigation method and saline water levels increased the total NPK content but it was found to be at par with N2. These results suggest that drip irrigation can be used over traditional method for better soil profile moisture, decreased soil salinity and reduced salinity effects on soil and plant.