{"id":1249,"date":"2026-06-15T09:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2026-06-19T09:38:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T09:38:31","slug":"zonal-councils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/15\/zonal-councils\/","title":{"rendered":"Zonal Councils"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Zonal Councils<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

About<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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  • Zonal Councils are\u00a0<\/strong>statutory bodies<\/strong>\u00a0set up under the\u00a0States Re-organization Act, 1956<\/strong><\/mark>\u00a0<\/strong>to provide a common meeting ground to the States and UTs for\u00a0resolution of inter-state and regional issues<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0building harmonious Centre-State relations.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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    Did you know?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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    • The idea of creation of Zonal Councils was mooted by the first Prime Minister of India,\u00a0Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru\u00a0<\/strong>in\u00a01956.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

      Composition<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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      • The\u00a0States Re-organisation\u00a0Act<\/strong>\u00a0established\u00a0five Zonal Councils\u00a0<\/strong>namely:\u00a0\n
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        • Northern Zonal Council<\/strong>,\u00a0comprising\u00a0States\/UTs of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Chandigarh,\u00a0Jammu and Kashmir\u00a0and Ladakh;\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Central Zonal Council<\/strong>,\u00a0comprising\u00a0Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand,\u00a0Uttar Pradesh\u00a0and Madhya Pradesh;\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Eastern Zonal Council<\/strong>,\u00a0comprising\u00a0Bihar, Jharkhand,\u00a0Orissa, and West Bengal;\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Western Zonal Council,\u00a0<\/strong>comprising\u00a0Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu;\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • Southern Zonal Council,\u00a0<\/strong>comprising\u00a0Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala,\u00a0Tamil Nadu\u00a0and the UT of Puducherry.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • The\u00a0North Eastern\u00a0States\u00a0<\/strong>i.e. (i) Assam (ii) Arunachal Pradesh (iii) Manipur (iv) Tripura (v) Mizoram (vi) Meghalaya and (vii) Nagaland are not included in the Zonal Councils and their special problems are looked after by the\u00a0North Eastern\u00a0Council,<\/strong>\u00a0set up under the\u00a0North Eastern\u00a0Council Act, 1972.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\n
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          • The\u00a0State of Sikkim<\/strong>\u00a0has also been included in the\u00a0North Eastern\u00a0Council\u00a0<\/strong>from\u00a02002.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
            \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            Structure<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/mark><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
              \n
            • Chairman: Union Home Minister.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Vice\u00a0Chairman: Chief Ministers of the States\u00a0<\/strong>included in each zone by\u00a0rotation<\/strong>\u00a0(each holding office for a period of\u00a0one year<\/strong>\u00a0at a time).\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Members: Chief Minister and two other Ministers\u00a0<\/strong>as\u00a0nominated by the Governor\u00a0<\/strong>from each of the States and\u00a0two members from Union Territories<\/strong>\u00a0included in the zone.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Union Ministers\u00a0<\/strong>are also invited to\u00a0participate\u00a0in the meetings of Zonal Councils depending upon necessity.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Each Zonal Council has set up a\u00a0Standing Committee<\/strong>\u00a0consisting of\u00a0Chief Secretaries<\/strong>\u00a0of the member States of their respective Zonal Councils.\u00a0\u00a0\n
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              • These Standing Committees meet from time to time to resolve the issues or to do necessary\u00a0ground work\u00a0for further meetings of the Zonal Councils.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
              • Each Council is an\u00a0advisory body<\/strong>\u00a0providing a structured forum for dialogue on inter-state and\u00a0centre-state issues, acting as a key platform to foster\u00a0mutual cooperation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                Zonal Councils About Did you know? Composition Structure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-polity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1251,"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/materials.simplycurrentaffairs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}