Floating treatment wetland (FTW), an innovative approach, offers a practical solution for treatment of polluted river water. Floating wetlands perform as a hydroponic system composed of growing medium for emergent vegetation and their associated microbes which remove nutrients and pollutants from the polluted water. The core objective of this study was to explore the potential of floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) augmented with pollutant degrading bacteria for remediation of heavy contaminated river’s water at microcosm scale. The analysis of water samples collected from River Ravi, Lahore, Pakistan revealed that the river is polluted with organic and inorganic pollutants. Four macrophytes; Brachia mutica, Typha domingensis, Phragmites australis and Leptochola fusca were selected to develop FTWs and were inoculated with the bacteria having pollutants degrading and plant growth-promoting activities. The developed FTWs system efficiently removed both organic and inorganic pollutants from the water and bacterial inoculation further improved the efficacy of the developed system. Between Typha domingensis and Leptochola fusca, inoculated with three different rhizospheric and endophytic bacterial strains, the performance of T. domingensis was significantly better than L. fusca. Between Phragmites australis and Brachia mutica, inoculated with consortium of five rhizospheric and endophytic bacterial strains,the performance of P. australis was better than B. mutica with and without bacteria. The FTWs system also showed potential to remove potentially toxic metals, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Cr, from the water and their metals removal efficacy was increased by the addition of microbes. The bacterial augmented treatments showed high biomass production than non-bacterial augmented treatments. Inoculated bacterial strains were found increasing in root and shoot of inoculated macrophytes.