{"id":33841,"date":"2023-03-19T09:17:17","date_gmt":"2023-03-19T03:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33841"},"modified":"2025-04-20T02:06:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T20:36:57","slug":"what-is-zonal-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-zonal-council\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Zonal Council?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Zonal Council \u2013 background, about, objectives, functions etc<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The 25th Eastern Zonal Council (EZC) meeting, held at Kolkata, was chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.<\/li>\n<li>Issues like illegal infiltration, trans-border smuggling and the vulnerable India-Bangladesh boundary were among subjects discussed at the meeting.<\/li>\n<li>In the light of the increase in the operational area of the border force earlier this year, the role of BSF was also discussed.\n<ul>\n<li>In October 2021, the Union govt extended the jurisdiction of BSF from 15 km to 50 km inside the international border along Punjab, West Bengal and Assam.<\/li>\n<li>This was opposed by the West Bengal govt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Background of Zonal Council<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The idea of creation of Zonal Councils was mooted by the first PM Nehru in 1956.<\/li>\n<li>This was suggested during the course of debate on the report of the States Re-organisation Commission<\/li>\n<li>It was suggested that a high-level advisory forum should be set up:\n<ul>\n<li>to minimise the impact of linguistic hostilities prevailed at that time;<\/li>\n<li>to create healthy inter-State and Centre-State environment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About Zonal Council<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In the light of the idea promoted by the then PM Nehru, five Zonal Councils were set up under the States Re-organisation Act, 1956.\n<ul>\n<li>Zonal Councils are the statutory and not the constitutional bodies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The five councils are:\n<ul>\n<li>The Northern Zonal Council; The Central Zonal Council; The Eastern Zonal Council; The Western Zonal Council; The Southern Zonal Council.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The North Eastern States are not included in the Zonal Councils.\n<ul>\n<li>Their special problems are looked after by the North Eastern Council, set up under the North Eastern Council Act, 1972.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the objectives of zonal council?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The main objectives of setting up of Zonal Councils are as under:\n<ul>\n<li>Bringing out national integration;<\/li>\n<li>Arresting the growth of acute State consciousness, regionalism, linguistic and particularistic tendencies;<\/li>\n<li>Enabling the Centre and the States to co-operate and exchange ideas and experiences;<\/li>\n<li>Establishing a climate of co-operation amongst the States for successful and speedy execution of development projects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the organisational structure of the zonal councils?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Chairman<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Union Home Minister is the Chairman of each of these Councils.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vice Chairman<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Chief Ministers of the States included in each zone act as Vice-Chairman of the Zonal Council for that zone by rotation, each holding office for a period of one year at a time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Members<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Chief Minister and two other Ministers as nominated by the Governor from each of the States and two members from Union Territories included in the zone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Advisers<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>One person nominated by the Planning Commission (now NITI Aayog) for each of the Zonal Councils,<\/li>\n<li>Chief Secretaries and another officer\/Development Commissioner nominated by each of the States included in the Zone<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Union Ministers are also invited to participate in the meetings of Zonal Councils depending upon necessity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the functions of zonal council?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Each Zonal Council is an advisory body and may discuss any matter in which some or all of the States represented in that Council have a common interest.<\/li>\n<li>It may advise the Central Government and the Government of each State concerned upon the action to be taken on any such matter.<\/li>\n<li>In particular, a Zonal Council may discuss, and make recommendations with regard to:\n<ul>\n<li>any matter of common interest in the field of economic and social planning;<\/li>\n<li>any matter concerning border disputes, linguistic minorities or inter-State transport;<\/li>\n<li>any matter connected with or arising out of, the re-organization of the States under the States Reorganisation Act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How this council is different from other platforms promoting cooperative federalism?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>There are a large number of other platforms which works on the principle of promoting cooperative federalism.\n<ul>\n<li>Eg., National Development Council, Inter State Council, Governor\u2019s\/Chief Minister\u2019s Conferences and other periodical high-level conferences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>However, the Zonal Councils are different, both in content and character.<\/li>\n<li>They are <strong>regional fora<\/strong> of cooperative endeavour for States linked with each other economically, politically and culturally.<\/li>\n<li>Being compact high-level bodies, specially meant for looking after the interests of respective zones, they are capable of focusing attention on specific issues taking into account <strong>regional factors<\/strong>, while keeping the national perspective in view.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is the zonal council?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Zonal Council is an advisory council set up to minimise the impact of hostilities and to create a healthy inter-State and Centre-State environment with a view to solving inter-State problems and fostering balanced socio-economic development of the respective zones.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) Who is the head of the zonal council?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Union Home Minister is the head of each of the Councils with the Chief Ministers of the States included in each zone acting as Vice-Chairman of the Zonal Council for that zone by rotation, each holding office for a period of one year at a time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/other-states\/northern-zonal-council-discusses-security-water-sharing\/article65620840.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Northern Zonal Council discusses security, water sharing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zonal Council is the statutory body set up with an aim to promote cooperative federalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33842,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33841","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=33841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}