The major cause of surface and ground water contamination is due to effluent from dyeing industries. The discharged effluent chemicals inhibit light penetration into water bodies and some are considered to be carcinogenic. In this study, the photocatalytic decomposition of the synthetic dye, methylene blue was investigated in the presence of activated TiO2. The TiO2 sample was characterized by using XRD to analyze the presence of anatase and rutile phases. The dye degradation was monitored as a change in absorbance by UV-Visible spectrophotometer. The contributing factors towards dye degradation include both the dye concentration as well as the quantity of TiO2 used. Different quantities of TiO2 in anatase phase was taken and activated under UV radiation for 15 min. and subsequently coated on to TLC plates using 5% polyvinyl alcohol as a binding agent. This photocatalytic plate was kept in the methylene blue dye solution and exposed to sunlight. The results shows that 57% of the 30ppm methylene blue dye gets degraded within 75min., when exposed to UV activated TiO2 in presence of natural sunlight.