•  Govt rejects demand for different time zone for north eastern states for ‘strategic reasons’.

Background:

• The debate for a separate time zone for the northeast has been in existence for as long as the history of modern India goes. Amidst the pros and cons of having two time zones for the country, no implementable solution has been proposed so far.
• Back in October this year, the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) and the National Measurement Institute (NMI) of India explored the possibility and also proposed an implementable solution.
• During British rule, India was divided into the Bombay and Calcutta time zones. Indian Standard Time was established on September 1, 1947, and corresponds to the time near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, with states located to the west of this longitude having more daylight hours compared to those in the east.
• In 2014, Assam decided to follow chaibagaan or bagaan time (tea estate time) unofficially, which is a daylight schedule set one hour ahead of the IST, and which was used by the British for tea estates, collieries and the oil industry.
• Last year, the Gauhati high court dismissed a public interest litigation that sought a separate time zone for the northeast.

Analysis:

• If lines of longitude are drawn exactly a degree apart, they will divide the Earth into 360 zones. Because the Earth spins 360° in 24 hours, a longitudinal distance of 15° represents a time separation of 1 hour, and 1° represents 4 minutes.
• Theoretically, the time zone followed by any place should relate to its longitudinal distance from any other place. Political boundaries, however, mean that time zones are often demarcated by bent lines rather than straight lines of longitude. This is “legal time”, as defined by a country’s law.
• The geographic “zero line” runs through Greenwich, London. It identifies GMT, now known as Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which is maintained by the Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in France.
• India extends from 68°7’E to 97°25’E, with the spread of 29° representing almost two hours from the geographic perspective. This has led to the argument that early sunrise in the easternmost parts — the Northeast — causes the loss of many daylight hours by the time offices or educational institutions open, and that early sunset, for its part, leads to higher consumption of electricity.
• The researchers estimated energy savings at 20 million kWh a year based on a formula explained in the article. They also analysed the importance of synchronising office hours — as well as biological activities — to sunrise and sunset timings.
• But, if the country were divided into two time zones, there would be chaos at the border between the two zones. It would mean resetting clocks with each crossing of the time zone. There is scope for more dangerous kinds of confusion. Railway signals are not fully automated and many routes have single tracks. Trains may meet with major accidents owing to human errors. Just one such accident would wipe out any benefits resulting from different time zones in the country.