ZONAL COUNCILS - POLITY
News: Amit
Shah chairs EZC meeting in Kolkata with Mamata, Soren and Tejashwi
What's in the news?
● Union
Home Minister Amit Shah chaired the 25th
Eastern Zonal Council meeting in Kolkata where representatives from four
States including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee were present.
● The
meeting which lasted for over two hours at the West Bengal State Secretariat
was also attended by Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Deputy Chief
Minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav and Ministers from Odisha alongside senior
officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs and officials of the States.
Key takeaways:
● Issues of cross-border
smuggling and illegal infiltration along the India-Bangladesh border as well as
left-wing extremism were raised at the meeting.
● The
Union Home Minister said that Left Wing Extremism [LWE] has almost been
eliminated from the Eastern region of the country and efforts should be made to
sustain this decisive dominance.
● He
stressed that efforts should be sustained as extremism should not re-emerge in
LWE-free States and that these States should develop at par with other parts of
the country.
● The
Union Home Minister urged the Chief Ministers to ensure the creation of a district-level mechanism of
the NCORD (National Narcotics Coordination Portal) and hold regular meetings.
Zonal Council:
● The
Zonal Councils are the statutory (and
not the constitutional) bodies.
● They
are established by an Act of the Parliament, that is, the States Reorganization Act of 1956.
Five Zones:
● The
Act divided the country into five zones (Northern,
Central, Eastern, Western and Southern) and provided 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 and
○ the
requirements of economic development, security, law and order.
Members of Zonal Council:
Each
zonal council consists of the following members
such as
● 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 (ie, without the right to vote
in the meetings):
● A
person nominated by the NITI Aayog.
● Chief
secretary of the government of each state in the zone.
● Development
commissioner of each state in the zone.
The Home minister of the Central government is the
common chairman of the five zonal councils.
Each chief minister acts as vice-chairman at the council by rotation, holding
office for a period of one year at a time.
Functions of Zonal Council:
● The
zonal councils aim at promoting
cooperation and coordination between states, union territories and the Centre.
● They
discuss and make recommendations regarding matters like economic and social
planning, linguistic minorities, border disputes, inter-state transport, and so
on.
● They
are only deliberative and advisory bodies.
Objectives:
The
objectives (or the functions) 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 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 development
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 was created by a
separate Act of Parliament - the North-Eastern
Council Act of 1971.
● Its
members include Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland Meghalaya,
Tripura and Sikkim.
● Its
functions are similar to those of the zonal councils but with few additions.
● It
has to formulate a unified and coordinated regional plan covering matters of
common importance.
● It
has to review from time to time the measures taken by the member states for the
maintenance of security and public order in the region.