Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government has geared up preparations for the ensuing Eastern Zonal Council (EZC) Meeting scheduled to be held here on February 28.

A high level meeting in this regard was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy at the Lok Seva Bhawan conference hall today wherein Principal Secretary, Home Sanjiv Chopra outlined the issues for discussion. Reviewing the department wise progress, the Chief Secretary directed concerned departments to feed updates on the status of various issues likely to come up in the meeting to the Home Department.

The EZC meeting will be held at the new convention center of Lok Seva Bhawan. Delegates from West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha along with officials of Government of India would participate in the meeting. Various inter-state concerns along with issues related to developmental schemes and programmes would be deliberated in the meet.

Issues relating to adoption of postage stamp method for unified power tariff in different states, disaster resilience infrastructure, rail link projects, operation of mines, financial inclusion, grants to Gram Panchayats under 14th Finance Commission, devolution of powers to panchayat bodies, coal royalty, implementation of direct benefit transfer, telecom and internet connectivity, use of Aadhaar database, timely release of central grants etc may figure in the deliberations, sources said.