Select the correct statement about zonal councils:

a) Chairman of the council is Prime Ministerb) Recommendation of the zonal council are compulsory for the states to implementc) Sikkim is the part of eastern zonal councild) Union territories are also part of the council

Ans-[D] 

Explanation– In the light of the vision of Pandit Nehru, five Zonal Councils were set up vide Part-III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. Home minister s the chairman of all zonal councils.

The Northern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh;

The Central Zonal Council, comprising the States of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh;

The Eastern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal;

The Western Zonal Council, comprising the States of Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli; and

The Southern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

The North Eastern States i.e. (i) Assam (ii) Arunachal Pradesh (iii) Manipur (iv) Tripura (v) Mizoram (vi) Meghalaya and (vii) Nagaland are not included in the Zonal Councils and their special problems are looked after by the North Eastern Council, set up under the North Eastern Council Act, 1972. The State of Sikkim has also been included in the North Eastern Council and as such it is not a part of eastern zonal council. It was part of Eastern Zonal Council earlier.