Shinde to chair meeting of southern Chief Ministers

Union Minister for Home Affairs Sushil Kumar Shinde will chair the 25th Southern Zonal Council Meeting in Bangalore on November 16.

The chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh (Kiran Kumar Reddy), Kerala (Oommen Chandy), Tamil Nadu (J Jayalalitha), Puducherry (N Rangaswamy) and Karnataka (Jagadish Shettar) will take part in the meeting.

Progress on the implementation of recommendations made at earlier meetings at Puducherry and Hyderabad will be reviewed at the meeting. 

The agenda of the meeting includes the need for maintaining status quo ante with respect to Central allocation of funds under poverty alleviation and rural development programmes, issues relating to fisheries, especially security of the fishermen, the need to strengthen the Drugs Control Organisation in southern states, extension of High Speed Rail Corridor between Mangalore and Udupi, introduction of Peninsular Tourism Trains in southern zone and addressing the problem of coastal erosion and supply of building materials from approved quarries of Tamil Nadu.

The Ministry of Home Affairs will also review matters relating to police administration in the southern states, human trafficking and atrocities committed against people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.