Zonal Councils of India

Zonal Councils are advisory councils and are made up of the states and union territories of India that have been grouped into five zones to foster cooperation among them. These were set up by Part-III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956.^[1]

#	Name	Names of member states, UTs (marked *) & special invites (marked ^)	Number of states	Number of UTs (includes NCT-Delhi)	Headquarters^[3]	Notes
1.	Northern Zonal Council	Chandigarh* Delhi* Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir* Ladakh*, Punjab Rajasthan	4	4	New Delhi
2.	Southern Zonal Council	Andaman and Nicobar Islands^* Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Kerala Puducherry* Tamil Nadu Telangana Lakshadweep^*	5	3	Chennai	Covers Peninsular India. union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep are not members of any of the Zonal Councils.^[4] However, they are presently special invitees to the Southern Zonal Council.^[5]
3.	Central Zonal Council	Chhattisgarh Madhya Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand	4	0	Prayagraj
4.	Eastern Zonal Council	Bihar Jharkhand Odisha West Bengal	4	0	Kolkata
5.	Western Zonal Council	Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu* Goa Gujarat Maharashtra	3	1	Mumbai
6.	North Eastern Council	Arunachal Pradesh Sikkim Nagaland Manipur Mizoram Tripura Assam Meghalaya	8	0	Shillong	Northeastern states are not covered by any of the Zonal Councils and their special problems are addressed by another statutory body, the North Eastern Council at Shillong, created by the North Eastern Council Act, 1971.^[6] This council originally comprised Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura; later the state of Sikkim was also added vide North Eastern Council (Amendment) Act, 2002 notified on 23 December 2002.^[7]

Members