[Assam] Two-timing India -HT

[Ram Sarangapani]

Highlights mine.
Just can't understand why the NE cannot have a separate time zone. Further,
for a power-strapped state like Assam, it would seem logical for the state
to demand such a zone.
BTW, which agency in India is responsible for time-zones?

--Ram
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*Two-timing India*

  *Hindustan Times*
It is just as well that the debate about whether India should have two
different standard times or not has popped up once again. The latest
suggestion comes from a team of scientists in Bangalore that wants the
government to seriously consider advancing the Indian Standard Time (IST) by
half an hour so that it is six hours ahead of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
or the Universal Coordinated Time. This, they say, will save an estimated 16
per cent peak evening electricity. Writing in the journal, Current Science,
Dilip Ahuja and D.P. Sen Gupta of the National Institute of Advanced Studies
at the Indian Institute of Science propose advancing IST from being the time
at the 82.5 degree East longitude (Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh) to 90 degree
East (Bengal-Assam border). This is not the first time such plans have been
mooted. During the late 1980s, researchers from one of India's leading
energy institutes suggested a similar system of time zones to save
electricity.

The basic idea behind these proposals is obviously sound:* to make the best
use of daylight in eastern India*, where the sun rises and sets more than an
hour earlier than in the west. Arunachal Pradesh, for instance, gets to see
the sun when it is still dark in Ahmedabad. *People in the east stay up
longer, keeping lights on, and use up more electricity than in the rest of
the country*. *Not surprisingly, even cricket matches played in Guwahati
have to be started half an hour early so that they can be finished before
the shadows creep in*. Critics argue weakly against dual time zones, quoting
everything from increased risks of train accidents across the time zonal
boundaries to possible spurt in terrorist violence. Fears that the energy
savings won't justify these risks are also unfounded, given that current
power shortages cost India up to 1.5 per cent of its GDP every year.
Considering that every degree of longitude spells four minutes, India's
geographical span of 68 degrees to 97 degrees East of Greenwich works out to
nearly two hours — large enough to have two time zones.

In any case, for well over half a century, the subcontinent did have
separate time zones for its largest Presidencies, Bombay and Calcutta —
temporal divisions that were unified only after Independence. So perhaps the
bigger question is whether there is enough political will in the country to
reset our clocks? The time for that starts now.
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