The Tamil Nadu government is making preparations to host the 31^st Southern Zonal Council meeting, in the third or fourth week of August, at Mamallapuram, about 60 kilometres south of Chennai.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will chair the Southern Zonal Council meeting. Sources said the State government has begun preparations to host the meeting. A few rounds of official coordination meetings have already been held to prepare for the event.

Zonal Councils are statutory bodies established under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. The Southern Zonal Council comprises of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

The 31^st Southern Zonal Council meeting was originally scheduled to be held at Mamallapuram in January 2025 but was postponed. The last Southern Zonal Council meeting was hosted by Kerala at Thiruvananthapuram in September 2022.

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu government has nominated Minister for Energy Resources and Law R. Nirmalkumar and Minister for School Education, Tamil Development, Information and Publicity Rajmohan as members of the Southern Zonal Council. They will serve as members of the Council besides Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, representing Tamil Nadu.

During the previous DMK regime, the then Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, then Industries Minister T.R.B. Rajaa, and then Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Minister P.K. Sekarbabu were members.

Further, the State government has also nominated K. Manivasan, Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Prohibition and Excise, as the second adviser to the Council, in addition to Chief Secretary M. Saikumar.