Proactively considering two time zones: Government

New Delhi: In what could be music to the ears of the proponents of a separate time zone, the government on Wednesday said it is “proactively” considering the matter of having two separate time zones in the country.

Responding to BJD member B. Mahtab’s raising of the issue, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday: “He (B. Mahtab) has raised a very important and sensitive matter. The government is pro-actively considering the issue.”

This is the second time in less than a month that the government has spelt out its stand after department of science and technology secretary Ashutosh Sharma had said last month that his department was conducting a study to give “scientific inputs” on the matter.

Pointing to the fact that there was a gap of nearly two hours in sunrise timings between the eastern and the western parts of the country, Mr Mahtab said, “Sun rises at 4 am in Arunachal Pradesh while offices open at 10 am. The ministry of science and technology has also done a study on this in the past.”

He added that some 2.7 billion units of electricity could be saved if there are two separate time zones and added that only the Centre can take a call on office timings.

The East-West spread of India extends for about 28 longitudinal degrees accounting for about 2 hours as a result of which the Sun rises two hours earlier in the extreme eastern part of the country than its western tip.

The issue had picked traction after Pema Khandu, Arunachal Pradesh’s CM, recently demanded a separate time zone for the Northeast.

At present, India’s time is set in accordance with the 82.5 degrees East longitude that determines the Indian Standard Time (IST), set five-and-a-half-hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

The IST longitude divides India into two parts, the eastern part comprising Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Sikkim and the seven Northeast states and the western part making for the other component.

The issue is one of the points in the agenda of demands framed by the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom which is in talks with the Centre to chart out a solution to the decades-long militancy problem in Assam.

A separate time zone has been a long-standing demand of eminent personalities hailing from the region that has been spearheaded by eminent filmmaker Jahnu Barua who has also worked out a model to calculate the monetary loss incurred in the Northeast because of following the IST. According to his calculations, every year, there is a loss of at least Rs 94,900 crore in the region because of redundant power consumption.