This paper proposes an Efficient Distributed Clustering and Gradient based Routing Protocol (EDCGRP) to support the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in (i) prolonging the network lifetime (ii) utilizing the battery energy efficiently (iii) reducing the overhead of the network (iv) ensuring high Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) with minimal delay. To achieve this goal, the delay time based Cluster Head (CH) selection is presented based on the node’s residual energy, node degree, and Received Signal Strength (RSS). And also, the RSS based network partitioning is introduced to establish the gradient based on-demand routing between the source and the Base Station (BS). The proposed protocol performs the clustering process whenever the residual energy of the current CH goes below the threshold level, thus minimizing the exchange of control packets. In addition, the BS collects the data from each CH periodically which helps in reducing the collision and Medium Access Control (MAC) layer contention. From the simulation results, it is evinced that the performance of the proposed protocol is better than the well-known existing protocols in terms of PDR, Average End-to-End Delay (AEED), Average Energy Consumption (AEC), and control overhead. © 2019 Institute of Information Science. All rights reserved.