Even though a number of kits and devices are available for detecting common milk adulterants like urea, boric acid, water, sugar and detergents, there is hardly any portable device available for the detection of melamine. till now bulky instruments like gas chromatography (gc), hplc, gc-ms and lc-ms are being used for detecting melamine which costs in between 25 to 50 lakhs rupees as well as requiring skilled personnel for operation. we have developed a fully automated handheld device to detect melamine from milk with integrated milk preprocessing being done using chemical dried cotton. both the preprocessing and detection steps are innovative and patented. the cost of the device may be few thousand rupees which is almost 1000 times lesser than the price of existing conventional instruments. the developed device is user friendly which can give the level of melamine adulteration in ppm directly.