• The 28th meeting of the Southern Zonal Council was recently held under the Chairmanship of the Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh in Bengaluru.
• The Council reviewed the progress of the implementation of the recommendations made at the last meeting relating to security to fishermen, introduction of peninsular tourism trains, uniformity in allocation of funds in proportion to population of SC/ST for scholarship for all the courses etc.

What are zonal councils?

• The idea of creation of Zonal Councils was first mooted by the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1956. The zonal councils have been established by the state reorganization act 1956 to advise on matters of common interest to each of the five zones, into which the territory of India has been divided.
• Zonal Councils are not Constitutional bodies unlike Interstate Council, which is a statutory body established under article 263. However, since Zonal Councils have been established via the part III of the States Reorganization Act of 1956, they are statutory bodies.
• In India, at present, there are 6 Zonal Council. Originally five councils were created as per the States Reorganization Act 1956 as follows:
• Northern Zonal Council: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh
• Central Zonal Council: Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh
• Eastern Zonal Council: Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Sikkim and West Bengal;
• Western Zonal Council: Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli
• Southern Zonal Council: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

Composition:

• Chairman – The Union Home Minister is the Chairman of each of these Councils.
• Vice Chairman – 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.
• Members- 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.
• Advisers- One person nominated by the Planning Commission (which has been replaced by NITI Ayog now) for each of the Zonal Councils, Chief Secretaries and another officer/Development Commissioner nominated by each of the States included in the Zone.
• Union Ministers are also invited to participate in the meetings of Zonal Councils depending upon necessity.