About:

The Zonal Councils are statutory bodies. They are established by the an act of parliament under state reorganizations act, 1956.

The act divided the country into five zones. They are

1. Northern 
2. Central
3. Southern
4. Western
5. Eastern 

And provide a Zonal council for each zone.

While forming these zones several factors have been taken into account which include;

• The natural divisions of the country
• The river systems and means of communication
• The cultural and linguistic affinity
• The requirements of economic development and security, law and order.

Aim:

• The zonal Councils aim at promoting cooperation and coordination between states, union territories and centre.
• They discuss and make recommendations regarding matters like economic and social planning, linguistic minorities and border disputes, inter-state transport and so on,
• They are only deliberative and advisory bodies.

Composition:

Each zonal consists of the following members;

• Home minister of the central government.
• Chief Ministers of all the states in the zone.
• Two other ministers from each state in the zone.
• Administrator of each union territory in the zone.

Besides, the following persons can be associated with the zonal council as advisors without the right to vote in the meetings.

• A person is nominated by the planning commission
• Chief Secretary of the government of each state in the zone.
• Development commissioner of each state in the zone.

The Home Minister is the common chairman of the five zonal councils. Each chief minister acts as a vice-chairman of the council by rotation, holding office for a period of one year at a time.

Objectives:

The objectives of the zonal councils, in detail are as follows;

• To achieve an emotional integration of the country.
• To help in arresting the growth of acute state consciousness, regionalism, linguism and particularistic trends.
• To help in removing the after-effects of separation in some cases so that the process of reorganization, integration and economic advancement may synchronize.
• To enable the centre and the states to cooperate with each other in social and economic matters and exchange ideas and experience in order to evolve uniform policies.
• To cooperate with each other in the successful and speedy execution of major developmental projects.
• To secure some kind of political equilibrium between different regions of the country.

North eastern council:

• In addition to the above zonal councils, a north eastern council created by a separate act of parliament under the North eastern council of act, 1971.
• It members include Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura and Sikkim.
• It functions are similar to those of the zonal councils, but with a few additions.

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