Union Home Minister Amit Shah will chair the 29th meeting of the Southern Zonal Council on Sunday at Tirupati.
Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, and Puducherry and administrators of Union Territories of Lakshadweep, Andaman & Nicobar Islands are likely to attend the meeting.
"Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has stressed the need to leverage cooperative and competitive federalism to achieve all round growth. Zonal Councils provide the platform to foster such collaboration through a structured mechanism for dialogue and discussion on a continuous basis on the issues affecting two or more states or the Centre and States, in the spirit that strong states make a strong nation," a Home Ministry statement said.
Shah has given impetus to this vision of cooperative federalism to empower states and promote a better understanding between the Centre and states in the policy framework, it added.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is the Vice Chairman of the Southern Zonal Council and host.
Other Chief Ministers from the states in the zone along with two ministers each are the members. Chief Secretaries and senior officers from the state governments and the Centre will also attend the meeting.
The Zonal Councils provide a forum for resolving disputes and irritants between the Centre and states and among many states in the Zone, the Home Ministry said.
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 etc., matters pertaining to forests and environment, housing, education, food security, tourism and transport, it added.
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