Central Zonal Council to hold its 20th meeting at Lucknow tomorrow

The last meeting of the Zonal Council was held in New Delhi in the year 2010.

"As a precursor to tomorrow’s meeting, the Standing Committee of the Central Zonal Council was held in New Delhi on October 31, 2014 to finalize the agenda items proposed to be placed before the Council and see if they merit bringing up before the council or can simply be dealt with at their level," read a government statement.

The issues flagged by the Standing Committee, consisting of the Chief Secretaries of the States, relates to increasing density and upgradation of existing roads, child welfare programmes, control of Left Wing Extremism, improvement of the Airport Infrastructure in the States, release of CAMPA funds and modernization of police forces.

"There are likely to be many more substantial issues of Centre-State and Inter-State relations that the Chief Ministers would like to raise in the meeting," read the statement.

There are five Zonal Councils, namely Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern and Central Zonal Council which are advisory bodies and discuss any matter in which some or all of the States represented in a Council have a common interest.

These Councils advise the Central and State Governments on any matter of common interest in the field of economic and social planning, linguistic minorities, inter-state transport, matters connected with or arising out of the reorganization of states and matters concerning border disputes.