India is the 7th largest country by area and ranges 2,933 km from eastern to western most point. Countries with contiguous land wider than India from eastern to western most point based on longitudinal distance are Russia (169.65° W - 27.32° E), Canada (141° W - 55.62° W), China (134.77° E - 73.49° E), United States (124.73° W - 66.95° W), Kazakhstan (87.31° E - 46.50° E), Australia (153.63° E - 113.16° E), Brazil (73.98° W - 34.79° W), Mongolia (119.92° E - 87.73° E), and Mexico (117.12° W - 86.74° W)
All these countries mentioned above have at least two time zones except China and Kazakhstan. India has 29.03° longitudinal difference between the eastern and western most point which corresponds to a 1 hour 56 min difference. Due to the sheer size of the country, there is a need of two time zones namely West India Time and East India Time. States and union territory like Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim, Tripura, and West Bengal falls after the 82.5° E longitude and should follow East India Time while the remaining states of India should follow West India Time.Due to the usage of single time zone i.e. Indian Standard Time (IST), sun sets early in the eastern region of the country leading to increased electricity consumption. In addition to electric wastage, there is a decrease in productivity of workers due to early sunset.
As the world has moved towards digitization, implementing a new time zone is relatively easy. Kazakhstan has recently changed their time zone in 2024. Most of the watches we use are now connected to the Internet and can instantaneously change the time. People now a days keep track of time from mobile phones, computers, smart watches, and very rarely using an analog clock. This change has far more benefits than the one-time requirement of resources. For India to be a developed country, its eastern region must prosper economically. For that, proper utilization of daylight and savings money on electricity due to early sunset needs to be prioritized.
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Economic consideration
Power consumption
Having two time zones can save a lot of money spent on electricity. According to the Ministry of Power press release, there was a requirement of 184,587 MU of energy for the states which fall in eastern and north-eastern region for April 2022 – February 2023. On average, there is 16,780 MU of energy required per month. By pushing the daylight time by one hour, there is a potential to save
There is a concern that having two time zones will make banking and other business difficult as there is a difference of 1 hour. The fact that the difference in time zone can only be experienced during the first or last working hour of a day, when the business transactions are relatively lower. There will still be an overlap of 7 working hours among the time zones which covers the peak time of business transactions. Indian organizations that have multiple business across the country is digitalized and implementing two time zones on their system requires a one-time effort. Multinational organizations already have been following multiple time zones as they have offices in different countries and don’t have to put much effort.
Social consideration
India is developing at a fast pace due to increase in literacy level, upliftment of people from poverty and investment on infrastructure. Long back, people had to change their clock when travelling from one time zone to another. Now a days, most of our watches are connected to the Internet and they change time automatically when going from one time zone to another. There are multiple false narratives against two time zones in India. Firstly, there is a narrative that having two time zones will divide people and make people living in one time zone feel alienated from the other. Sunrise and sunset are a natural process and when sunrises 2 hours ahead of another part of the country, it has nothing to do with uniting or dividing people. There are 23 countries in the world which have more than one time zone and no country ever in the history got divided due to having multiple time zones. In fact, having two time zones enlighten the citizen, the vastness of India from eastern to western most point.
Secondly, there is a narrative that many Indian citizens are illiterate and will fail to understand two time zones. According to a survey performed by National Statistical Commission in 2017-18, India literacy rate was found to be 77.7%. This has definitely increased over the last 6 years. More and more people can now understand and accept policies implemented for the betterment of the people.
Railway consideration
India has undergone a digital transformation which has provided 900 million people access to Internet. In every aspect, digitalization has helped in improving the life of people. According to the Ministry of Railways, 98.8% of total railway stations have been upgraded to Electrical / Electronic Signaling Interlocking System from old mechanical signaling as of May 2023. The signaling system has been overhauled to integrate more automation. Airplanes have been following multiple time zones for so many years and departure and arrival times are always local time. Similarly, the timetable of railways will be local time. Trains in Europe and America pass through different time zones, and they automatically change the onboard time to reflect the change in time zone.
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