Abstract: Surface milling of hardened steel is usually carried out with copious supply of cutting fluid and is obviously associated with problems related to procurement and storage of cutting fluid. The disposal of cutting fluid has to comply with environmental legislation such as OSHA regulations. The present investigation aims at establishing an environment friendly minimal pulsed jet cutting fluid application scheme for surface milling of AISI4340 steel with a hardness of 45 HRC using commercially available carbide tools. A special minimal fluid applicator was developed which facilitated the independent variation of fluid application parameters such as pressure at the fluid injector, frequency of pulsing, rate of fluid application and mode of fluid application. A set of operating parameters for optimum performance was determined using Response Table Methodology. Accordingly, an 8 run experiment was designed based on Taguchi’s techniques. The new fluid application system offered a reduction in surface roughness (Ra) from 1.177 microns to 0.631 microns, reduction in flank wear from 0.051 to 0.018 mm and reduction in cutting force from 228.25 to 105.79 N when compared to conventional wet milling under the same cutting conditions which requires very large quantity of cutting fluid. The scheme can be implemented as such on the shop floor with out the need for any major alternations on the existing facilities and it was observed that the new scheme is not only environment friendly but also provided better cutting performance.