Oil contamination of soil and water are causing serious problems in environment. Using lipolytic microorganisms, triglycerides and fatty acids can be oxidized which reduces the oil contaminants from all types of soils and waters. The present study focuses on isolation of lipolytic microbes from diesel contaminated soils and analysis of their ability to produce lipase in defined media under controlled conditions. Qualitative analysis and isolation includes illumination on ROA plates and tween hydrolysis on Tween 80 agar plates. Four different bacterial strains showing positive result were selected. These strains namely R1, R4, R6 and T3 were identified as gram positive bacilli. For quantitative analysis, production media (PM1, PM2) were used. Enzyme estimation was done by titrimetry method against 0.5 N NaOH. Four different substates viz. Tween 80, olive oil, diesel and petrol were used separately in different reaction mixtures. Of all the isolates, T3 strain has showed highest activity of 14µl/ml in PM2.
