The Hindu Business Line : Power shortage: Centre mulling multiple time zones

New Delhi April 28 With no immediate solution to the power crisis, the Centre is considering a proposal to have different time zones for the country with the aim of staggering the office and school timings by about 1-2 hours. This would spread out peak hours and reduce pressure on the electricity grids.

With peak shortages increasing from 11.8 per cent in 2001-02 to 13.9 per cent in 2006-07 and capacity addition targets during the Tenth Plan period faltering badly, the Centre is looking at a recommendation by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy to have differential time zones for staggering energy consumption across regions, Government sources said.

Differential Timing

India currently has a single time zone compared with Russia's eleven time zones, the US and Canada's six zones, Brazil's four zones and Australia and Kazakhstan's three zones. China, however, is a notable exception with a single time zone.

India's east-west span of more than 2,000 km covers over 28 degrees of longitude, resulting in a two hour difference in the sun rise and set across the eastern border and the Rann of Kutch in the far west.

The main merit in having differential timing is that eastern States could advance their clocks with the early sunrise and avoid the extra consumption of energy after daylight hours. Besides, office timings in an eastern hub such as Guwahati or Kolkata could be earlier than say in Mumbai or Ahmedabad in the west, thereby staggering peak consumption timings.

The Indian Standard Time is calculated on the basis of the 82.5° E longitude, which is just west of the town of Mirzapur near Allahabad.

Local time is calculated from a clock tower at the Allahabad Observatory, though the official time-keeping devices are entrusted to the Delhi-based National Physical Laboratory.

In the late 1980s, a team of researchers proposed two or three time zones to conserve energy. In 2001, the Centre established a committee under the Ministry of Science and Technology to examine the need for multiple time zones. The findings, which were presented to Parliament in 2004, recommended continuing with the single time zone. Though the Government has so far resisted multiple time zones, provisions in labour laws such as the Plantations Labour Act, 1951 actually allow the Government to define and set the local time for a particular industrial area.

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