The central government has promulgated the “Disaster Management Act, 2005” and keeping with the change the department was rechristened as the Department of Disaster Management in 2006.

Departmental set-up has been created in all the Districts, Sub-Division and Blocks of the state. West Bengal is the only state in the country where this departmental structure exists in all tiers of the administration. The department works under the leadership of the Block Dev. Officer in the blocks, Sub-Divisional officer in the Sub-Division and the District Magistrate in the Districts. The major activities of the department includes pre-disaster preparation for relief and rehabilitation, storing of tarpaulins, clothing and other relief articles, construction of multi-purpose shelter for the community in the flood and cyclone-prone areas, providing one time grant for economic rehabilitation under different schemes, distributing food grain to the destitute and poorest persons throughout the year.

At present the activities of the department has spread to wider areas. Under the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) programme, disaster risk mapping and preparedness, vulnerability mapping, providing practical ideas to reduce disaster risk in development planning, capacity building of the vulnerable communities through continuous training are some of the important activities that the department undertakes.