Eastern Zonal Council meet to focus on LWE situation, coal royalty revision

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee attended the Eastern Zonal Council meeting which was held at Odisha's Bhubaneswar on Thursday under the chairmanship of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. This is the first time after the CAA was enacted, that Banerjee has agreed to attend any meeting under the surveillance of the BJP-led central government.

Bhubaneswar (Odisha): Coal royalty revision, railway projects and Left Wing Extremism (LWE) are some of the issues that are likely to figure in the Eastern Zonal Council's meeting here on Friday, officials said.

The meeting will be chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and attended by chief ministers of Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand, they said.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is the vice-chairman of the council and the host.

The officials said nearly four dozen issues will be discussed in the meeting.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already reached the state.

Police have made elaborate security arrangements in view of the council's meeting and another meeting of the home minister on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act at the Janata Maidan here, a senior official said.

The issues set to figure in the council's meeting include inter-state water issues, setting up power transmission lines, royalty and operationalisation of coals mines, land and forest clearance for rail projects, lack of telecom and banking infrastructure in remote areas, petroleum projects and sharing pattern of centrally collected revenues," a senior official said.

"Odisha will raise issues relating to the adoption of postage stamp method for unified power tariff in different states, disaster resilience infrastructure, rail projects, operation of mines, financial inclusion, grants to gram panchayats under the 14th Finance Commission, devolution of power to panchayat bodies," he said.

Coal royalty, implementation of direct benefit transfer, telecom and internet connectivity, use of Aadhar database, timely release of central grants will also be raised by the state, the official said.

Since all the four eastern states - Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand - are coal-bearing areas, the respective chief ministers will certainly raise the issue as the Centre has delayed coal royalty revision by three years, he said.

The Odisha chief minister has already written several letters to the Centre seeking coal royalty revision and share for the states on green cess.

"We will raise the issues relating to coal royalty revision and mobile phone connectivity to 11,000 villages in remote Odisha," Chief Secretary A K Tripathy told reporters.

The chief ministers of each state will be accompanied by two cabinet ministers besides the chief secretary and other senior officers.

Secretaries or additional secretaries and other senior officers of the central government will also attend the meeting, the officials said.

The last meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council was held in Kolkata on October 1, 2018.

(PTI Report)