Wastewater generated from industrial effluents poses potential damage to human health as well as causing environmental degradation. Chemically (Potassium hydroxide) modified Vetiver activated carbon prepared and used as an adsorbent material in the study, was characterized using FTIR and EDXSEM. Batch adsorption studies carried out to remove Lead (Pb+2) and Nickel (Ni+2) in binary feed and effect of variable operational parameters such as pH, contact time, adsorbent dose and initial concentration of metal ions were studied. The experimental data reported the highest adsorption of 96.34 % (91.33 mg/g) for Pb+2 and 95.67 % (59.62 mg/g) for Ni+2 at optimum values of selected factors being pH of 5.5, a contact time of 105 mins, adsorbent dose 0.10 gms and for an initial concentration of 40 mg/L, 60 mg/L. The process parameters were optimized using response surface method (RSM). A two-level four-factor (24) CCD model for factors pH, Contact time, adsorbent dose and initial concentration used for optimization, which showed maximum % removal by Ni+2 97.51%. The experimental data fitted well for Pb+2 metal having the highest R2 0.96.