Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a category of wireless network that does not rely on any fixed infrastructure and adapts dynamically. Conventional ad-hoc routing protocols are aimed at finding optimum route from source to destination with no awareness of the current traffic in the network. Adapting to dynamic nature on addressing the challenges in utilizing the scarce resources such as bandwidth,battery power has become a key consideration in current research. Congestion during transmission is another major challenge faced by mobile ad hoc networks which affects the network traffic and thereby the performance directly. Though few congestion control mechanisms are proposed,they incur delay and thus deteriorate the performance of the network subsequently. Adaptation to current network traffic and congestion helps overcoming the delay incurred and thus improves the performance compared to conventional proactive and reactive routing mechanisms. This paper details a survey with an analysis on the existing congestion aware and congestion adaptive routing protocols to understand their impact in improving the performance of the network. The detailed survey presents an overview on the advantages and limitations of the existing congestion aware and congestion adaptive routing protocols. © 2016,International Journal of Pharmacy and Technology. All rights reserved.