Effluent originating from the distilleries known as spent wash leads to extensive soil and water pollution. The aim of this study is to isolate and identify bacterial consortium and fungal species which are capable of using recalcitrant compounds of molasses spent wash as a sole carbon source from the soils of abandoned sites of distillery effluent discharge and characterize their ability of reducing the COD, BOD, TSS, TDS and decolorization of spent wash. Between bacterial consortium and fungal species, Aspergillus species showed the highest decolorization of about (84.3) and show effective reduction in BOD and COD. This work presents a review of the existing status and advances in biological and physico-chemical methods applied to the treatment of molasses based distillery wastewater. Further, the studies also deal with the roles of microbial enzymes in the decolourisation process to develop a better understanding of the phenomenon.