Abstract: Actinomycetes constitute an economically important class of bacteria for their ability to produce various degradative enzymes and secondary metabolites. The present study was conducted with the objectives to isolate some soil actinomycetes, screen them for production of hydrolytic enzymes and characterize them. A total of 30 isolates of actinomycetes were obtained from six soil samples collected from Kuruva Island and the banks of Pookot Lake from Wayanad district in Kerala, India. Screening for enzyme production among 18 randomly selected isolates revealed that 13 of them were able to synthesize either cellulase, pectinase and/or xylanase. The results indicated that 44.4% of the total isolates produced all the three enzymes. Based on morphological and biochemical characterization, the active isolates were found to belong to the genus Streptomyces. The relatedness between the 13 active isolates was determined by RAPD fingerprinting using 20 different primers. Only amplification with primer OPAB-9 resulted in good scorable bands and revealed a prominent band at 600 bp in 54% of the isolates. The dendrogram showed that the active isolates fell into one super cluster which further consisted of three clusters and one out group. The presence of identical cultural characteristics was detected in most of the clusters. With respect to the enzyme activity, the similarity was only noticed among majority of the members of cluster 1. This molecular study may be employed as an effective tool to characterize streptomycete isolates capable of producing various industrially important enzymes.