Objectives: The present study was aimed to evaluate routine microscopic examination and plasmodium lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH) based immuno chromatographic assay for the rapid detection of malaria. Methods: This study was carried out at the Department of Research, MNR medical collage __ampersandsignamp; Hospital, sangareddy, Telangana from 2012 to 2015. Thick and thin blood smears were stained by giemsa staining followed by microscopy. All the specimens were tested by rapid test kit and confirmed by Western blot method. Results: In our study out of 1870 clinically suspected cases, 295 (15.78%) were positive for P. falciparum by microscopy and 296 (15.82%) were positive by ICT method. 72 (3.85%) cases were positive for P. vivax by both the methods. Conclusion: Although microscopy is gold standard method to detect malaria parasites from blood smear, it requires well experienced person and well established laboratory. On other hand rapid ICT kit is a very simple, inexpensive, user-friendly, point of care and effective diagnostic assay that can be done at the bedside for detecting malarial parasites.