Ans.
1. Northeastern states of India Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura – and Andaman and Nicobar Islands was demanding different time zone as theses face difficulty in managing their routine work schedule.
2. In Northeastern states the sun rises and sets earlier than the official working hours.
3. This natural phenomenon gives birth to some practical problems like it affects the productivity and makes electric consumption much higher.
4. Early sunrise leads to loss of daylight hours by the time offices or educational institutions open. In winter, this problem gets even more severe as the sun sets much early and therefore, more consumption of electricity is required.
5. To deal with this tea gardens of Assam have been following ‘Chaibagaan time’ which is one hour ahead of India Standard Time (IST).
6. Recently, a study done by team of researchers from CSIR-NPL has been published in the journal Current Science that supported the demand of dual time zones for these states and said it is feasible to have dual time zones for them.
7. The study said that technically it is feasible to have two time zones and two ISTs in India.
8. It recommended that IST-I for most of India and IST- II for the Northeastern region, this would be separated by difference of one hour. At present, the country observes a single time zone based on the longitude passing through 82°33′E.
9. But this long standing demand of dual times zones in India is not possible because of strategic reasons.
10. It may lead to confusions in train, airlines timings and may lead to any accident. Moreover administrative processes of Centre-State as well as Interstate coordination may get affected.
11. Interestingly, before independence the country was following three major time zones- Bombay, Calcutta and Madras Time.
Practice Question
What was the outcome of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking cooperation among all countries in the SAARC region to combat coronavirus?