SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 12 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 14 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

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Arrange the following events in chronological order: a. Eastern Zonal Council meeting 2022 b. States Reorganisation Act passed c. First Central Zonal Council meeting

(a)b-c-a
(b)c-b-a
(c)a-b-c
(d)b-a-c

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The order is b → c → a.

b first: Part III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 created the Zonal Councils, so no council could meet before the Act.

c next: the Central Zonal Council held its first meeting on 1 May 1957, at Lucknow.

a last: the Eastern Zonal Council meeting is the one the stem itself dates to 2022.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
c-b-a — Puts the council's first meeting before the Act that created it. A body set up under Part III of the 1956 Act cannot meet before that Act is passed.
(c)
a-b-c — Puts the 2022 Eastern meeting first, though it is the latest of the three events. The Act and the 1957 first meeting are in the right order, but both belong before 2022.
(d)
b-a-c — Gets the Act right, then puts the 2022 Eastern meeting ahead of the Central council's first meeting in 1957, sixty-five years out of order.

Concept

Zonal Councils are statutory bodies, not constitutional ones. The Ministry of Home Affairs lists five, set up under Part III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956: Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern.

The Union Home Minister chairs each council. The Chief Ministers of its member States take turns as Vice-Chairman, one year at a time.

The Eastern council groups Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. The North Eastern Council is separate, created by its own Act in 1971.

You need almost no dates. The Act must come first because it created the councils, and the stem stamps the Eastern meeting 2022. The date worth knowing is that the councils began meeting in 1957.

Key facts

Part III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 set up five Zonal Councils: Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern.
The Union Home Minister is the Chairman of each Zonal Council.
The Central Zonal Council first met on 1 May 1957 at Lucknow, and the Eastern Zonal Council on 30 April 1957 at Calcutta.
The 25th meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council was held in Kolkata on 17 December 2022, chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah.

Study next

The States Reorganisation Commission (Fazl Ali Commission), set up in December 1953The Inter-State Council under Article 263 and how it differs from a Zonal CouncilThe North Eastern Council, created by the North Eastern Council Act, 1971

Common traps

Calling Zonal Councils constitutional bodies — they come from an Act of Parliament, not the Constitution.
Placing a council's first meeting before the 1956 Act that created it.

The reorganisation behind these councils is asked directly at 25 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.14, which wants the month and year the States Reorganisation Commission was set up.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Scientific Research — all 152 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.