Abstract: Retting largely determines jute fibre quality. It is traditionally carried out in water bodies and basically a microbiological process. Efficient pectinolytic microbial inocula with low cellulolytic activity can improve fibre quality, reduce the time of retting and evade environmental pollution that arises due to retting. Thus, pectinolytic bacteria were isolated from retting water bodies occurring in two notable jute-growing belts in West Bengal, India. Thirty-eight pure bacterial strains were isolated and screened for polygalacturonase (PG), pectin lyase (PNL) and cellulase activity. PG, PNL and cellulase activity of the isolates were within the ranges of 8.74 - 41.00 IU g-1 cell wet weight, 2.23-75.7 U mL-1 and 0-0.316 μmol glucose mL-1 of culture filtrate min-1, respectively. Eight organisms, selected as future retting inocula based on their balanced proportion of pectinolytic activity and low or no cellulolytic activity, were identified. Majority of the isolates were found to be rod shaped, Gram positive, spore former and they could utilize starch, sucrose, mannitol, lactose and were catalase positive. The 16S rDNA sequences of the isolates were similar to the species: Agrobacterium sp. BN-2A (GQ891102), Bacillus pumilus strain Geo-03-422 (GQ891103), Microbacterium sp. PVC8 (GQ891104), Bacillus pumilus strain IK-MB12-518F (GQ891105), Bacillus sp. L6 (GQ891097), Bacillus pumilus strain EK-17 (GQ891098), Bacillus sp. YACS30 (GQ891099), Bacillus pumilus strainIK-MB13-518F (GQ891100).