"No two time zones for India" -Governance Now

"No two time zones for India"

Tinker with office timings in the northeast, suggest a committee

GN Bureau | April 22, 2010

The government has rejected the sugestion to introduce two time zones in the country. “The committee has recommended advancing the work/institutional timing in appropriate states would be more effective solution which can be implemented through administrative actions by the concerned state,” Minister of State for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan said in a statement in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

He also said that the committee “observed that separate time zone may not provide any major advantage to the states but may pose difficulties in view of differential timings to be framed for airlines, railways, communication services.”

The Department of Science and Technology had constituted a high-level committee to explore the feasibility of having two separate time zones in 2002 based on the communications received from the then Governor of Tripura and few individuals of the north eastern states.

Governance Now in its second issue which hit the stand on February 15 this year came out with an idea of separate time zone. In the title essay, eminent film-maker Jahnu Barua argued that a separate time zone for the northeast will not only save energy, but will also increase efficiency. Governance Now website also ran a campaign on this issue and many MPs from the northeast favoured a different time zone.

Meanwhile, Chavan told the Rajya Sabha:

"Based on communications received earlier from the then Governor of Tripura and few individuals, the Department of Science and Technology, in the year 2002, had constituted a high level Committee to explore the feasibility of having two separate time zones given the longitudinal difference between the extreme regions of the country. The Committee observed that having separate time zones may not provide any major advantage to the states but may pose difficulties in view of differential timings to be framed for airlines, railways, communication services, etc. It recommended that advancing the work/institutional timing in appropriate states would be more effective solution which can be implemented through administrative actions by the concerned state."

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