- Union Minister for Home Affairs has chaired the 24th meeting of the Western Zonal Council at Panaji,Goa.
- The Zonal Councils are statutory bodies.They were established under the States Reorganization Act,1956.
- The act divided the country into five zonal councils namely Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern councils.
- The objective of setting up Zonal Councils are to (a)bring out national integration (b)arrest the growth of acute State regionalism, linguism and particularistic tendencies (c)enable Centre and the States to co-operate and exchange ideas and experiences and (d)establish a climate of co-operation amongst States for successful execution of development projects.
- Each zonal council consists of the following members (a)Chairman – Union Home Minister (b)Vice Chairman are the Chief Ministers of the States included in each zone by each holding office for a period of one year at a time (c)Members are the Chief Minister and two other Ministers as nominated by the Governor from each of the States and two members from Union Territories included in the zone.
- In addition to the above Zonal Councils,a North-Eastern Council was also created by a separate Act of Parliament called North-Eastern Council Act of 1971.
- The members of North Eastern council includes states such as Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura and Sikkim.
