Separate Time Zones in India

This discussion ensues from the recent report on demand of separate time zone for North-east.

A time zone is a region of the earth that has uniform standard time, usually referred to as the local time. By convention, time zones compute their local time as an offset from UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Local time is UTC plus the current time zone offset for the considered location.

India currently has a single time zone compared with Russia's eleven time zones, the US and Canada's six zones, Brazil's four zones and Australia and Kazakhstan's three zones. China, however, is a notable exception with a single time zone. India's east-west span of more than 2,000 km covers over 28 degrees of longitude, resulting in a two hour difference in the sun rise and set across the eastern border and the Rann of Kutch in the far west.

Thus, is the demand for separate time zones in some circles. Academicians, youth, teachers, students and women organizations gathered recently to attend the open discussion on 'Separate Time Zone for Northeast' organized by K C Das Commerce College where they resolved to launch a campaign and submit a memorandum to the centre to place their demand for a separate time zone for Northeast region. This would enable them to observe Daylight Saving Time (DST). The total wastage of electricity at homes and offices of the region since independence due to following of single time zone is said to be to the tune of Rs 94, 000 crores. The participants rued the loss in productivity due to single time zone.

The Government not very lately has mulled over creation of separate time zones due to power crisis experienced by the country especially in summers. If implemented, it can aid in staggering the office and school timings by about 1-2 hours. This would spread out peak hours and reduce pressure on the electricity grids.

The main merit in having differential timing is that eastern States could advance their clocks with the early sunrise and avoid the extra consumption of energy after daylight hours. Besides, office timings in an eastern hub such as Guwahati or Kolkata could be earlier than say in Mumbai or Ahmedabad in the west, thereby staggering peak consumption timings.

In the late 1980s, a team of researchers proposed two or three time zones to conserve energy. In 2001, the Centre established a committee under the Ministry of Science and Technology to examine the need for multiple time zones. The findings, which were presented to Parliament in 2004, recommended continuing with the single time zone. Though the Government has so far resisted multiple time zones, provisions in labor laws such as the Plantations Labour Act, 1951 actually allow the Government to define and set the local time for a particular industrial area.

With the demand of separate time zones rising once again in Northeast, only time will tell if India will go on to adopt separate time zones just like its neighbor Bangladesh which has already advanced its time by 90 minutes compared to India. Bangladesh is using Daylight Saving Time with BST (UTC + 6) and BDST (UTC + 7) as compared to India's IST (UTC + 5:30). The move is expected to save electricity and encourage productive tendencies and to utilize sunlight better.

The counter arguments to this discussion – damage to unity of country, lack of uniformity. But if we want to increase productivity, this small rational step should definitely be considered. The government, educationists and media should clear the air and misconceptions in the mind of lay man and profess the need of this measure. With consensus built, there should not be any trouble implementing the idea.