A novel actinobacterial strain, designated RC 1830T, was isolated from the sediment of estuarine coastal brackish water lagoon of Chilika Lake, in Khurdha district of Odisha, India, and characterized using a polyphasic approach. Strain RC 1830T was halophilic and alkali-tolerant and found to hydrolyse chitin, starch, tributyrin, lecithin, Tween 80, cellulose, gelatin and casein. The diagnostic presence of ll-diaminopimelic acid, iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, C16 : 0, iso-C17 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 as major cellular fatty acids and MK-9(H4 and H6) as major menaquinones noticeably associated the strain to the genus
Streptomyces
. After comparison and analysis of the near complete 16S rRNA gene sequence with representative strains of other streptomycetes, it was evident that strain RC 1830T belonged to the genus
Streptomyces
, and exhibited the highest sequence similarities of 99.53 %, 99.25 %, 99.11 %, 99.10 % and 99. 06 % to
Streptomyces fragilis
DSM 40044T,
Streptomyces coelicoflavus
NBRC 15399T,
Streptomyces flaveolus
NBRC 3715T,
Streptomyces
lavenduligrisesus NBRC 13405T and
Streptomyces eurythermus
ATCC 14975T, respectively. Reconstruction of a phylogenetic tree for the genus
Streptomyces
revealed that strain RC 1830T formed a distinct phyletic line and clustered with its most closely related neighbour
S. fragilis
DSM 40044T. The DNA–DNA relatedness values between strain RC 1830T and the most closely related type strain
S. fragilis
DSM 40044T were determined to be 17.7±4.55 %. Additionally, morphological, biochemical and physiological tests were able to distinguish the strain from the most closely related type strain
S. fragilis
DSM 40044T and other closely related neighbours,
S. coelicoflavus
DSM 41471T and
Streptomyces flaveolus
DSM 40061T. Based on a range of phenotypic and genotypic properties, strain RC 1830T is suggested to represent a novel species of the genus
Streptomyces
for which the name
Streptomyces
chilikensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is RC 1830T ( = JCM 18411T = DSM 42072T).