NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will chair a meeting of the 26th Eastern Zonal Council (EZC) in Patna on Sunday.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had parted ways from the BJP-led NDA some time ago, will attend the meeting as its vice-chairman.
At the meeting, various issues like setting minimum support price for several minor millets, creation of infrastructure and water sharing will be discussed.
The Eastern Zonal Council includes Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha. The meeting is being organised by the Inter-State Council Secretariat under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in collaboration with the Bihar government.
According to an official statement from the MHA, the 26th council meeting will be attended by the CMs of the member states, along with two senior ministers from each state. “The chief secretaries and other senior officers of the Central government will also attend the meeting,” the statement said.
It said that important decisions related to the minimum support price of ‘Kodo’ and other millet crops and many other agriculture-related issues are expected to be taken. The National Framework for Sediment Management in 2022 would be another issue to be taken up.
Official sources said that the issues proposed by the states are first presented for discussion before the standing committee of the concerned zonal council. The chief ministers of member states of these councils and administrators or L-Gs of UTs are members of the five councils and one of them on a rotation basis acts as vice-chairman every year.