Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will preside over the meeting to be attended by Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana and Puducherry.
Issues of Inter-State and Centre-State cooperation and coordination have been flagged for this meeting, including coastal security, peninsular region industrial corridor, introduction of peninsular tourism trains, finalisation of inter-state reciprocal transport agreement, curbing the use of unacceptable levels of pesticides in fruits and vegetables, and maintaining uniform standards of nursing courses, etc.
Common interest pertaining to infrastructures, health, security, social welfare, linguistic minorities, border disputes etc., may be discussed and action taken.
Issues related to regional development of infrastructure for giving a boost to urban housing sector, construction of bridges, issuance of biometric identity cards and card-readers to fishermen are likely to be discussed at tomorrow's meeting.
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The states have been divided into five zones and each zone has its council comprising the chief minister, two ministers and the chief secretary of each state.
The zonal councils provide a forum where irritants between the Centre and states and amongst the states themselves can be resolved through free and frank discussion and consultations.
Being advisory bodies, there is full scope for free and frank exchange of views at these meetings.
Though there are a large number of other fora like the National Development Council, Inter State Council, Governor's and Chief Minister's Conferences and other periodic high-level conferences held under the auspices of the Union government, the zonal councils are different, both in content and character.
looking after the interests of the respective zones, the zonal committees are capable of focusing attention on specific issues taking into account regional factors even as the national perspective is kept in view.
Among the main objectives behind the setting up of zonal councils was promoting national integration, arresting the growth of acute state consciousness, regionalism, linguism and particularistic tendencies and establishing a climate of cooperation between the states for successful and speedy execution of development projects.
The meeting of each zonal council needs to be held once in a year to iron out the differences between the governments on issues of development concerning regional interest and national programmes.
Inter State Council Secretariat, which looks after the work of Zonal Council since 2011, was instructed to take on the preparatory work to complete meetings of all Zonal Councils, pending for years, by the end of 2015.
It was a challenging task as it mandatorily required holding of all the meetings of standing committees of these zonal councils prior to the Councils' meetings. It called for immense coordination and networking to have all the states to meet on the table under the chairmanship of the Union Home Minister for each of these zonal councils.
With completion of this meeting of Southern Zonal Council which is last in the series of the Councils' meetings this year, all the meetings of the Zonal Councils will be completed as committed by the government.