Relevance: GS Paper I (Human and Economic Geography)
Source:
Introduction
As the earth rotates 360 degrees every 24 hours, a longitudinal span of 15 degrees corresponds to a shift by an hour. India spans a longitudinal difference of 30 degrees from the western state of Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh in the East. However, India has a single time zone, defined by mean longitude at 82.5 degrees east of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), passing through Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. This results in almost a two-hour difference in sunrise from east to west.
Daylight saving time (DST)
- Usually, for the “surplus” in daylight in the morning hours, countries often implement measures such as daylight saving time (DST) and multiple time zones.
- The basic objective of introducing DST is to adjust the hours of human activity to make the best use of daylight. It follows from the assumption that human activity is driven by a standardized notion of time.
- If it were the case that individuals were following local time in a town or village, the need for introducing daylight savings would be futile.
- Since its conception, more than 70 countries have since used some form of DST, including the United States, Russia, and most of Europe.
Time zone and economy
- The current state of the Indian economy affords the ability to follow an informal time zone. In fact, those working on the tea plantations in the eastern state of Assam operate on their own time, often known as the “tea garden time”.
- However, there are growing demands for a formal change in the Indian Standard Time (IST) from the eastern and north-eastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
- With increasing levels of urbanization and formalization of the economy, the IST is likely to play an important role in determining the activities of individuals, not just in the case of eastern India, the use of daylight saving and/or additional time zones carry multiple pan-India benefits.
Rationale for multiple time zones
In India, the rationale for considering a change in the time is largely driven by
- Potential energy savings: As a result of an increase in daylight in the evenings, households are less likely to use artificial lighting during evenings.
- Effects on promoting physical activity: It may encourage greater sports and recreation participation.
- Mainstreaming the Northeast region: North-eastern states to better align economic activities with the rest of the country.
- Meeting other social policy objectives such as reducing road accidents and improving women’s safety.
Options before the policymakers
- There are several options that are available to policymakers to make adjustments to the current time system in place. The options have trade-offs depending upon
- whether the new system will be applicable pan-India or only regionally;
- will it be a permanent shift or daylight saving time; and
- what should the magnitude of the shift be.
- Ensuring schools and offices do not extend working hours: If the state has been following its own de-facto time, sun time, or local time, then the policy measures proposed here will not yield the desired outcomes.
- Similarly, if businesses and schools decide to alter their operating hours, it may erode the intended benefits of additional leisure time in the daylight during evenings.
- Lack of survey data to monitor impact: Implementation of these recommendations must be supported by the ability of the government to gather data and track changes in activity patterns in order to undertake rigorous evaluation of the impact of such measures.
- In addition, the policy intervention also presents an opportunity to assess the impact on subjective well-being, through novel techniques such as the day reconstruction method.
Centre-state cooperation
- The Constitution grants the autonomy to states to define and set local times for their respective industrial areas under the provisions in labour laws, such as the Plantations Labour Act, 1951.
- If requests by the states to consider DST or changes in the IST are repeatedly refused, it may lead to ad hoc measures by states.
Conclusion
Although such a policy could potentially reap low-hanging fruits, such a change would require centre-state and public-private cooperation to ensure nationwide adoption and that working hours for schools and businesses do not increase.
