{"id":14924,"date":"2025-07-11T12:09:45","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T06:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=14924"},"modified":"2025-07-11T15:21:44","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T09:51:44","slug":"zonal-councils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/zonal-councils\/","title":{"rendered":"Zonal Councils"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Zonal Councils Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Union Home Minister recently said zonal councils have transformed from being mere discussion forums into \u201cengines of cooperation\u201d, noting that 83% of issues taken up in their meetings have been resolved.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Zonal Councils<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>idea <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the creation of Zonal Councils was <\/span><b>mooted by <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the first Prime Minister of India, <\/span><b>Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, in 1956.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Zonal Councils are the <\/span><b>statutory bodies.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Five zonal councils<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> were<\/span><b> set up in 1957 under<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Sections 15-22 of the <\/span><b>States Reorganisation Act, 1956.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Objective<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: To provide a <\/span><b>common meeting ground to the states and UTs in each zone<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for <\/span><b>resolution of interstate and regional issues<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, fostering balanced socio-economic regional development and building <\/span><b>harmonious Centre- State relations.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The present <\/span><b>composition of each of these five Zonal Councils<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is as follows:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Northern Zonal Council: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu &amp; Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, and Chandigarh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Central Zonal Council:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Eastern Zonal Council:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Western Zonal Council: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Daman &amp; Diu and Dadra &amp; Nagar Haveli.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Southern Zonal Council: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>North Eastern Council:<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>North Eastern States,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> i.e. <\/span><b>Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are not included in the Zonal Councils, and their special problems are <\/span><b>looked after by the North Eastern Council, set up under the North Eastern Council Act, 1972.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The State of <\/span><b>Sikkim <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has also been <\/span><b>included in the North Eastern Council <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">vide the North Eastern Council (Amendment) Act, 2002, notified on 23rd December 2002.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Each Zonal Council is an advisory body<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and may discuss any matter in which some or all of the States represented in that council, or the Union and one or more of the States represented in that Council, have a common interest and <\/span><b>advise the Central Government and the Government of each State <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">concerned as to the action to be taken on any such matter.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Zonal Councils <\/b><b>Organisational Structure<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Chairman<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: The <\/span><b>Union Home Minister<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the Chairman of each of these Councils.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Vice Chairman:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The <\/span><b>Chief Ministers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the States included in each zone act as vice-chairman of the zonal council <\/span><b>for that zone by rotation,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> each holding office for a <\/span><b>period of one year at a time.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Members<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><b>Chief Minister and two other ministers as nominated by the Governor<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from each of the States and <\/span><b>two members from Union Territories <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">included in the zone.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Each Zonal Council <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has set up a<\/span><b> Standing Committee<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> consisting of <\/span><b>Chief Secretaries<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the member States of the respective Zonal Councils.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Standing Committees<\/span><b> meet from time to time<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to resolve the issues or to do necessary groundwork for further meetings of the Zonal Councils.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Senior officers from the NITI Aayog<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (erstwhile Planning Commission), <\/span><b>Central Ministries, and State Governments<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are <\/span><b>associated with the meetings <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">depending upon necessity. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/zonal-councils-have-transformed-into-engines-of-cooperation-amit-shah-10119164\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">IE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zonal Councils foster Centre-State cooperation by providing a platform for resolving interstate issues and promoting balanced regional development. Read more about Zonal Councils in India, Objectives, Structure, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":54417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,22,23,1464],"class_list":{"0":"post-14924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"tag-zonal-councils","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}