Context: Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired the 27th meeting of the Western Zonal Council in Pune. 

Background: –

• The idea of creation of Zonal Councils was mooted by the first PM Jawaharlal Nehru in 1956 when during the course of debate on the report of the States Reorganisation Commission, he suggested that the states proposed to be reorganised may be grouped into four or five zones having an Advisory Council “to develop the habit of cooperative working”.

Key Points

• Zonal Councils in India are statutory bodies created under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. The North-Eastern Council (NEC), created under a separate Act in 1971, covers the northeastern states and functions differently.
• The present composition of the Zonal Councils is as follows: 
  • The Northern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh. 
  • The Central Zonal Council, comprising the States of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. 
  • The Eastern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal. 
  • The Western Zonal Council, comprising the States of Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. 
  • The Southern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry. 
  • North Eastern Council was set up under the North Eastern Council Act, 1972 with Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland as its members. The state of Sikkim, earlier in the Eastern Zonal Council was included in the North Eastern Council in 2002.
• Each Zonal Council has a Standing Committee consisting of Chief Secretaries of the member states. These Standing Committees meet from time to time to resolve the issues or to do necessary groundwork for further meetings of the Zonal Councils.
• The composition of each council is as follows: The Union Home Minister is the chairman of each of these council. 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.
• In 2018, the Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the nomination of the Union Home Minister as ex-officio chairman of North Eastern Council and the Minister Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) to serve as Vice Chairman of the Council.

Source: Indian Express