Explained: Why Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma is demanding a separate time zone for the Northeast

The demand for a separate time zone for India’s northeastern states is once again back in the discussion. This time, led by Assam chief minister Himata Biswa Sarma.

While submitting a report on the border pact with Meghalaya in the state Assembly on Wednesday, Sarma said that the signing of the agreement has “laid the seed of a new united Northeast”. He then went on to talk about a separate time zone for the region. “Today, we have the necessity for a separate time zone for the northeast. If we take it forward by two hours, we will save on power consumption, improve our work efficiency, and our health. We would then be able to synchronise it with our biological clock,” he said.

But why does this northeast need a separate time zone?

The reason for the demand is the loss of daylight hours and excess use of electricity. The distance between India’s east to west is 2,933 kilometres, which is equivalent to a two-hour time difference. In the Northeast, around the summer solstice, sunrise occurs at 4:15 am, and in winter anywhere between 4 pm to 5 pm.

Dong in the Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh bordering Assam is where the sun rises first in India. That is nearly two hours before dawn at Guhar Moti in Gujarat, the westernmost part of the country.

On 1 April, the sun is expected to rise in Guwahati at 5.15 am. In Ahmedabad, the sunrise time is 6.32 am.

By the time offices and schools open, many daylight hours are lost. A 2019 study by a research scholar at New York’s Cornell University has found that every evening the sun sets more than 90 minutes later in the western part of India.

“Back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest that India incurs annual human capital costs of roughly $4.1 billion (nearly Rs 29,000 crore) or 0.2 per cent of nominal GDP [gross domestic product] due to the existing policy regulating time zone boundaries,” Maulik Jagnani, the author of the study, told IndiaSpend.

Advancing the time by 30 minutes alone could save 2.7 billion units of electricity every year, says another research by professors DP Sengupta and Dilip Ahuja of the National Institute of Advanced Studies.

A long-standing demand

Sarma’s demand to reset the clock for the Northeast is not new. Politicians in the region have been asking for a change for decades now. It has come up in several Parliament sessions since 2002.

Members from across parties and from different northeastern states have asked the Centre at least 16 times to look into the matter. It was first raised in March 2002 and settled in August that year, when then Minister of State for Science and Technology Bachi Singh Rawat said “no”, according to The Hindu.

In 2006, the Planning Commission had recommended two different time zones for the country. However, it was not implemented.

A high-level committee set up by the Union Ministry of Science and Technology had said in 2009 that “eastern states in the country do face certain disadvantages by following standard time due to early sunrise/sunset in the region”. It suggested advancing work timings by one hour.

In January 2014, then Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi had proposed that the state follow the chai bagaan time. In tea gardens in the state, workers start their day an hour before the Indian Standard Time (IST)

Arunachal chief minister Pema Khandu had said, in 2017, “We get up as early as 4 am. Several daylight hours are wasted as government offices open only at 10 am and close at 4 pm.” The matter has also been taken to court. But Guwahati High Court (HC) had rejected the public interest litigation that year.

Why has the demand faced opposition?

A change in timing could create division between the northeast and the rest of India, believe experts. It could instigate separatism.

During a talk organised by the Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai in 2019, Dilip Ahuja from the National Institute of Advanced Studies and DP Sen Gupta from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, said that having two different time zones could lead to a likelihood of “misuse as a political means to divide the country”.

They also pointed out that a change in time zones could lead to chaos and confusion, especially when it comes to air and rail travel, leading to accidents.

Intelligence agencies believe that separate time zones would encourage militants, seeking secession in the region.

When India had different time zones

Before Independence, India had two time zones — Bombay Time and Calcutta Time — to help traders make use of daylight, according to a report in IndiaSpend. However, when policies were formulated for independent India, the government decided to go with a single time zone, 5.5 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. All of India now follows a single Indian Standard Time (IST).

Do other countries have different time zones?

Countries the world over have multiple time zones. With 12 standard times, France is the country with the most time zones, followed by the United States and Russia, which have 11 time zones each.

Australia has eight time zones. The United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Brazil, and Mexico also use multiple time zones.

Countries in Africa and North and South America use daylight saving time (DST) by setting their clocks forward, usually by an hour, from the standard in summer and back in winter. This enables them to make better use of daylight.

The United States Senate on 15 March passed a law making daylight saving time permanent, doing away with the biannual practice of putting clocks forward and back coinciding with the arrival and departure of winter.

If the legislation, called Sunshine Protection Act, passes in the House of Representatives as well and is signed into law by US president Joe Biden, it will come into effect in November 2023.

Around 70 countries use multiple time zones or DST. India is an exception.

With inputs from agencies

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