The imbalance in the pace of land aggredation-degradation cycle in Northeast (NE) Indian is a major concern for sustaining soil health, which is mainly attributed to undulating topography with steep slopes and high rainfall associated with faulty land use practices (jhum cultivation). In the edapho-climatic conditions of NE India, improved land use practices like agroforestry systems are the feasible systems that are expected to shift the balance in favour of aggredation. However, concerted and quantified information are not available on the long term effect of the agroforestry systems on soil health. Therefore, six different well established (>25 years old) agroforestry systems compromising various species combinations with variety of agricultural crops were evaluated in the mid hills of Meghalaya with respect to the major soil functions related to nutrient cycling and resource conservation. Maize based agriculture, pure pine forest and jhum lands were also evaluated to have a comparative assessment with the agro-forestry systems. Soil health attributes (physical, chemical and biological) were measured and soil quality index (SQ I) was developed to rank the systems according to their merit. The SQI was developed by data reduction (MDS), scaling of variables and giving them differential weightage through principal component analysis (PCA). For the index development, an additive model was used. Results revealed that soils were strongly acidic in reaction (pH:4.36-4.83), low in exchangeable bases (3.44-8.07 meq/100 gm soils), very high in organic carbon content (SOC:1.69-2.41%), low to medium in available nitrogen (N:200-297.9kg/ha), available phosphorous (P:9.22-35.4 kg/ha) and available potash (K:254.0-356.9 kg/ha). Among the land uses, Alder (Alnus nepalensis) based agroforestry systems significantly incresed the exchangeable bases by 37%, soil pH by 0.1 unit, SOC by 14%, availability of major soil nutrients-N by 24%, P by 200% and K by 8% over jhum and maize based agriculture systems. Hydro-physical properties related to water transmission incresed by 37%, retention by 10% and structural stability by 11% while erosion susceptibility decreased by more than 30% over jhum and agriculture systems. Overall, the soil quality index (SQI) was maximum under Alder+Large cardamon (0.858) followed by Alder+Tea+Black pepper (0.758), Alder+Ginger (0.756), Gumhar+Turmeric (0.755) and maize based agriculture (0.751). Non Alder based agroforestry systems like Silver Oak+Pineapple (0.732) and Som+Broom+Pineapple (0.735) recorded significantly low SQI compared to Alder based systems but was comparable with Pine forest (0.705) systems. The lowest SQI values were estimated under Jhum land (0.637)