Kolkata: The meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council will be held at Nabanna Sabhaghar on Monday, in which various matters including interstate relation and development issues will be discussed.
Union Home minister Rajnath Singh, who is the chairman of the council, will be holding the meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her counterparts from Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha. Banerjee is the vice-chairperson of the council. Senior ministers and officials of all the four states will also be present in the meeting.
In the meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council comprising the four states, Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar and Chief Minister of Jharkhand Raghubar Das are scheduled to be present in the meeting. State Finance minister Amit Mitra and Minister of State for Planning, Statistics and Programme Monitoring Asima Patra, will be present in the meeting. Among senior officials, Chief Secretary Malay De and Additional Chief Secretary of the Finance department H K Dwivedi will also be attending the meeting.
It has been learnt that the Finance minister and Forest minister of Odisha will attend the meeting as well. Besides the Chief Minister, the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi and the state's Energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav will also attend the meeting.
Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar and Home Secretary Amir Subhani will also be in the delegation from Bihar. Senior ministers of Jharkhand C P Singh and Neelkanth Singh Munda and the state's Chief Secretary Sudhir Tripathi will also be present in the meeting.
Additional Secretary of Niti Ayog will also be attending the meeting. There are various matters related to the development issues of the states and there will be detailed discussion in this connection in the meeting. The matters related to the interstate relations will come up in the meeting as well.
It may be mentioned that Maoist menace still persists in Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha. So, there would also be discussion in this regard in the meeting. In Bengal, Maoist menace is not there anymore. But Central Forces are still posted at the areas in Jungalmahal that was once infested with them. The issue regarding the withdrawal of Central Forces from such areas would also come up in the meeting.
The preparations for the meeting at Nabanna Sabhaghar is going on in full swing and security arrangement in and around the state Secretariat will be tightened up as well.