Huge consumption of water and low biodegradability of textile dye wastes calls for arncombination of biological, chemical, physico-chemical and physical processes along withrna complementary treatment process to remove more of the dyes. Persistent aromaticrnstructure and recalcitrant nature of various dyes and textile chemicals makes thernbiological treatment not always successful in the treatment of cotton textile wastewater.rnChemical methods also have limitations. No universally accepted and efficient method isrnyet developed for dye removal.rnIn the present study water-soluble reactive azo dyes , fast red RC salt and solar yellowrnBG were removed from water using locally available industrial by product, a wasternresidue generated from the manufacture of alum from kaolin by the sulfuric acid process.rnBatch experiments are carried out for the sorption of fast red salt RC and solar yellowrnBG onto the adsorbent. The operating variables studied for that of FR-RC salt arernadsorbent dose, contact time, system pH, initial dye concentration, and kinetics andrnadsorption isotherms. And for SY-BG the operating variables studied are adsorbent dosernand contact time. The mechanism of dye adsorption for FR-RC salt onto the media isrninvestigated by using the experimental results. The adsorption process is slow for FR-RCrnsalt; requiring 30 hours to reach equilibrium and an adsorbent dose of 19g/L is optimumrnfor this equilibrium contact time for 77.4 % removal efficiency. For SY-BG thernequilibrium contact time and optimum dose are 12 minutes and 0.3g/L respectively forrn99.3 removal efficiency. When the pH of the system is 7to9 the dye removal efficiency forrnFR-RC salt is greater than 90%. For the given concentration range the removal of dyernfrom water was not depend on initial dye concentration for FR-RC salt. The adsorptionrnprocess was found to undergo via a pseudo-second-order adsorption kinetics with a raternconstant of 3.81X10-3(g mg-1min-1). The equilibrium data are fitted to Freundlichrnisotherm equations for that of FR-RC salt. From these the adsorption efficiency,rnadsorption capacity and intensity of adsorption are calculated. The overall result showsrnthe adsorbent is efficient decolorizing material.rnKey Words: Textile dye, Batch decolorization, an industrial by product; Dye removalrnefficiency, Adsorption capacity, equilibrium time.