A Gram-negative, motile, rod-shaped, yellow-pigmented bacterium, strain UI2(T), was isolated from a hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) dump site located in Ummari, in northern India. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain UI2(T) belongs to the genus Sphingopyxis and showed highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with Sphingopyxis terrae IFO 15098(T) (98.6 %). DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain UI2(T) and Sphingopyxis terrae IFO 15098(T) and other related strains were found to be less than 46 %. The major cellular fatty acids of strain UI2(T) were C(18 : 1)omega7c (28.3 %), C(16 : 0) (14.4 %), 11-methyl C(18 : 1)omega7c (10.9 %), C(17 : 1)omega6c (9.6 %) and summed feature 3 (consisting of C(16 : 1)omega7c and/or C(15 : 0) iso 2-OH; 14.7 %). The DNA G+C content of strain UI2(T) was 68 mol%. On the basis of DNA-DNA hybridization, phenotypic characteristics and phylogenetic analysis, strain UI2(T) is found to represent a novel species of the genus Sphingopyxis, for which the name Sphingopyxis ummariensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is UI2(T) (=CCM 7428(T) =MTCC 8591(T)).