A number of international agencies reflected concerns about the possible increase in vulnerability of populations across the world. This paper depicted the vulnerability profile of different livelihood groups in West Bengal. The findings of this study showed that labourers and crop farmers and rural artisan are particularly hit hard by any shocks with landless labour class suffered the most. Further, in terms of both exposure to shocks and its impact on the households the Darjeeling district was more vulnerable than Uttar Dinajpur district. The vulnerability index of Darjeeling District was 3.40 while in Uttar Dinajpur District it was 3.29. The study area was highly vulnerable to natural disaster, price falls of products due to market fluctuation, bread winner ’s death and moderately vulnerable to illness, conflict. Higher exposure index for Darjeeling (19.76) indicated that shocks are more frequent there as compared to Uttar Dinajpur District (19.68). While higher impact index for the same region (15.40) indicated that the regions capacity to adopt and household ’s ability to cope with shocks are least in Darjeeling district. Households with better education, owning productive assets like land or cattle, having non-farm employment opportunities, income diversification and access to resources, higher social participation and markets were less vulnerable. All these have a large contribution in household income. Therefore, improving the ability of the poor to cope with vulnerability is the best way to reduce the impact of different shocks

Keyword: Livelihood; Vulnerability; Shocks; Adaptation;