A separate time zone for the Northeast can increase productivity at work, save energy
Arecent
proposal by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for a separate time zone
for the Northeast has rekindled an issue first talked about more than
two decades ago. He is joined by 39 members from both the houses of
Parliament, cutting across party lines, hoping to put up a united fight
to seek a new regional meridian. What has thus far been discussed in the
intellectual and academic circles of Assam is slowly gaining political
momentum.
At the heart of this new demand is internationally acclaimed
filmmaker Jahnu Barua. Barua, with a team of researchers, has dug out a
dossier of facts hoping to make the Union’s legislature see the
disadvantages the region faces because of a unified time zone for the
country. With
the current setup of 85.2 degrees east of GMT, the states
in the eastern elbow of the country lose as much as six hours of
daylight when compared to the states in the west.
There is close to 31.7 degrees of separation between the eastern and
westernmost part of the country, says Barua’s research team. If four
minutes separate each degree, the real time difference is close to 126
minutes. The Indian Mean Longitude or the determiner for the Indian
Standard Time (IST) is at 85.2 degrees or a difference of 48.4 minutes
from the easternmost tip of the country. These states not just lose
advantages of an early sunrise in the summer but also prematurely switch
on the lights in the evening during winters.
In winters, especially in January, a government employee in Assam
will have to wait for about 3 hours 50 minutes before the office doors
open, but can only work for about 7 hours 45 minutes before the office
closes at sunset. A similar person in Kutch will have to wait only for 2
hours 25 minutes before he heads out and will have a good 1 hour 16
minutes of sunlight left after he returns.
Daylight hours lost mean a loss of productivity.
The Northeast has lost an estimated 25 years and 10 months of
productivity because of a standard time zone in the country since
Independence and in 100 years this loss could be over 48 years, says
Barua.
The loss of daylight hours has several repercussions. Apart from loss
of productivity, changes in the biological clock and wastage of energy
are seen as direct fallouts of this unified time regime. Researchers
have come out with several findings on the amount of energy that can be
saved from such a move.
The Shimla-based National Institute of Advanced Study estimates that
if half an hour is added to IST making it GMT+6, as much as two billion
units of electricity, especially during peak hours, could be saved.
Other researchers have pointed out that creating another time zone for
the Northeast could reduce the region’s electricity demand by over 500
MW. International experiences of daylight saving have been mixed. While
there have been reports of about one per cent electri city saving in
Brazil and California in the US, the actual efficacy is still being
debated upon.
A single time zone for India is a post-Independence phenomenon. When
the British ruled, India had two time zones with a difference of 1 hour 3
minutes—one for Calcutta (GMT+5.54) and the other for Mumbai
(GMT+4.41). But these time zones were abolished after Independence
bringing the meridian to Allahabad. Tea gardens in Assam, though,
continue to function like they used to during the British days, an hour
ahead of IST. Beginning the day early means more leaves plucked and
sorted. Oil companies followed a similar principle till the 1970s,
writes Sanjoy Hazarika in his book Strangers in the Mist, which was
revised in 2011. But after these companies switched to IST their
productivity fell, he writes.
Changing the time zone is, however, not very easy. The Department of
Science and Technology of the Union government was the first to reject
such an idea. Its high-powered committee set up in 2002 had recommended
that the disadvantages of two time zones far outweigh the advantages.
The disadvantages included coordination of flight and train timings and
communication hassles. But it did suggest changing of work times and
institutional timings.
Gogoi can begin with this, by setting up an experiment in his own
state government offices, and show that an hour early to office can
increase productivity.
This could, perhaps, help coax national policymakers into seeing the light in his dual time zone proposal.
