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| Should india have two time zones? | | | Pragya Khanna
It has been quite some
time now that the North-eastern part of the country has been demanding a separate time zone where sunset and sunrise are well ahead of 'office timings', which are according to India Standard Time (IST). India's official timekeeper, the National Physical Laboratory, says it is feasible to implement two time zones for the country, and that will increase productivity in North-eastern states.
India is geographically the second-largest country not to have multiple time-zones, the People's Republic of China being the other. Adopting two time zones for India is something that has been debatable and unsettled. Actually, far too many people in India operate in a time zone that is not an appropriate diurnal cycle for them, viz., those living in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and also Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Before contemplating on the subject, let's go through certain basic essentials to understand the background of the supplication. We already know that the time (on clock) is not same everywhere on our earth. For example, while it may be morning for India, it may be night for America for a given point of time as earth moves from west to east and because of that not all the parts of earth receives sunlight at the same time. A Time Zone represents a geographic area and all the clocks in a given time zone have the same time being shown which is called STANDARD TIME. In total, earth has been divided into 24 time zones. That means, each time zone is 15 degrees of longitude wide. Total longitudes make an angle of 360 degree. So 360/15 = 24 time zones. In a very non-technical way, we know that longitudes can be defined as the vertical lines that join the North Pole & the South Pole, the unit of its measurement is in degrees & minutes. Any data on longitude gives us the idea about the distance of that place in reference to the Greenwich Meridian which is considered as the central Longitude (0/Zero Degree) and passes through Greenwich, London.
In the case of India, the time difference between the westernmost part of India and the easternmost point is approximately two hours, the effect of which is that the sun rises and sets much earlier in the north-east than it does in the rest of the country. The journalist, writer and academician, Sanjoy Hazarika describes the Northeast as being "trapped in a time zone that makes neither common sense nor social and economic sense". In the Northeast, the sun rises as early as four in the morning and in winter it sets by four in the evening. By the time government offices or educational institutions open, many daylight hours are already lost. In winter this problem gets even more accentuated and the ecological costs are a disaster with much more electricity having to be consumed.
Profs. D.P. Sengupta, and Dilip Ahuja of the National Institute of Advanced Studies claim that even advancing IST by half an hour would result in saving 2.7 billion units of electricity every year.
A few years ago, then Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, frustrated with the decision of the Centre not to have a separate Northeast time, unilaterally decided that Assam would follow ChaiBagaan time. Bagaan time or tea time is a reference to an informal practice followed in tea gardens in Assam which is an hour ahead of IST. It alerts us to the fact that there is indeed a long history of the application of different time zones in India.
A research paper proposes to call the two time zones IST-I (UTC + 5.30 h) and IST-II (UTC + 6.30 h). The proposed line of demarcation is at 89°52'E, the narrow border between Assam and West Bengal. States west of the line should continue to follow IST (to be called IST-I). States east of the line Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunanchal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Andaman & Nicobar Islands should follow IST-II. The paper explains the choice of the line: "As the railway signals have not yet been fully automated in the country, the border between the two time zones should have a very narrow spatial-width with minimum number of train stations so that the train timings while crossing the border can be managed manually without any untoward incidents."
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 of people to sunrise and sunset timings. There is no doubt that there will be some initial chaos, particularly to time-tables, but globally several nations, particularly the United States, maintain multiple time-zones. It may not be a bad idea for the country to explore the possibility of two time zones which could well lead to greater efficiencies among the workforce and on energy consumption.
In an excerpt taken from an article, the author says, "This picturesque and idyllic place in the Andaman and Nicobar chain is beautiful. But there is a problem. Despite being close to the equator, the sun, as per the watch, sets just after five in the evening. In Bhuj, on the other hand, during the height of summer, the sun often sets well after eight in the evening". Therefore, it sounds absurd that the two places having such a difference in timings should fall under one standard time zone.
Indian Standard Time, which is five and a half hours ahead of the Greenwich Mean Time (+5.30 GMT), is an anachronism like many systems that were inherited from the British. In fact, India did not have any single time zone until as late as 1906. A cursory history of time in India reveals that the cities of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras (the three Presidencies, as the British called them) had their own time zones, and these were determined almost precisely by their geographical longitude. So in colonial times, there was a one-hour-nine-minutes time difference between Kolkata and Mumbai. Yet, today these cities, which are 1,650km apart, share the same time.
Proponents of a single time zone argue that India is not as wide as China, which continues to have a single time zone (the country actually spreads across five time zones). In addition, if India were to implement two time zones, there would be utter chaos, not the least to long-distance railway schedules but also in the way business is conducted in India. A single time, a single shared experience, no matter where you are in India, unifies the nation. That is definitely a strong ideal, but also slightly flawed because it does not take advantage of the light.
It does not take a doctor to tell one that the human body works best in sunlight. Changing time zones when we travel internationally can seriously disturb physical cycles. If the sun rises too early and sets too early, or vice versa, as per the local time, it can also disturb body cycles.
Sure, someone growing up in Kolkata might get used to early sunsets, just like Mumbaikars get used to late sunrises. But being in the same time zone where the sun is high in the sky in Kolkata and barely rising in Mumbai, is strange. After all, these two cities are an hour apart by their natural time zones.
However, it is argued that India has a huge population; 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 even for more dangerous kinds of confusion. The 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. Moreover, partitioning the already divided country further into time zones may also have undesirable political consequences.
On the political front it is often maintained that there is already a sense of alienation between the relatively prosperous and industrialised western zone and the less developed eastern zone. The people in the Northeast sense a distance from the mainland and a separateness in clock time may accentuate it. In a country with so many diversities to amalgamate into a proverbial unity, asking the people of the Northeast to wake up an hour earlier might lead to yet another point of difference.
What might be seriously considered is a proposal of some researchers, including those from the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore and Scientists at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research's National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL), to set the IST forward by half an hour so that it is six hours ahead of Universal Coordinated Time. This will mean advancing the point of reckoning at 82.5 degree East to 90 degree East, which will fall at a longitude along the West Bengal-Assam border. That should go some way in meeting Assam's demand, and help avoid potential grievances from north western India about corresponding inconveniences that an advancing by one full hour could necessitate for it in terms of late sunrise time.
I leave you pondering with the question, Should India have more than one-time zone? This is perhaps a question that the Law Commission may find worthy of investigating further. In the meantime, we will have to be content with the amendments, moderations etc. of local orders changing office timings etc. And, most of east India will continue to feel the whims of IST an inconvenience while the further you go to the Northeast, it will all depend on your perception. |
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