The 24th meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council, a forum for the Centre and the states to cooperate and exchange ideas and experiences on issues related to health, security and social welfare, will be held in Bhubaneswar on Friday.
The meeting will be chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and chief ministers of Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand -- Naveen Patnaik, Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee and Hemant Soren, respectively -- are expected to take part in it, a Home Ministry statement said.
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Patnaik, who is the host of the event, is the vice-chairman of the Eastern Zonal Council.
Common interests pertaining to infrastructure, health, security, social welfare, linguistic minorities, border disputes may be discussed and action taken.
The upcoming meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council will deliberate upon nearly four dozen issues, which include inter-state water issues, power transmission lines, royalty on coals, operationalisation of coals mines, land and forest clearance for rail projects, investigation of heinous offences, cattle smuggling across the country's borders, the statement said.
With such senior level participation of political leadership and officers, a large number of issues are likely to get resolved by consensus in the meeting.
The chief ministers will be accompanied by two cabinet ministers from each state as members of the council and chief secretary and other senior officers of the states.
Secretaries and additional secretaries and other senior officers of the central government will also attend the meeting. Last meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council was held in Kolkata in October, 2018.
Five zonal councils were set up in 1957 under Section 15-22 of the States Reorganization Act, 1956.
The home minister is the chairman of each of these five zonal councils and chief minister of the host state, to be chosen by rotation every year, is the vice-chairman.
Two more ministers from each state are nominated as members by the governor.
The council takes up issues involving the Centre and the states and among the member-states falling in the zone and thus provide a forum for resolving disputes and irritants between them.
The zonal councils discuss a broad range of issues, which include boundary related disputes, security, infrastructure related matters like road, transport, industries, water and power, matters pertaining to forests and environment, housing, education, food security.
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