Port Blair, June 23: While the Government of India is presently conducting a study to assess the feasibility of having different time zones within India, authorities in Andaman must conduct a study that how a different time zone will benefit Andaman. Most importantly do we actually need a different time zone?
In Andaman, most of the people are up by 5.30 am and till 8.30 am we waste three hours of Day Light and by evening 5.30 pm it is dark here and in many offices babus and HODs work till 6.30 pm to 7.00 pm, wasting electricity. If Andaman gets a different time zone, which is delayed by one hour, Andaman will be able to save a lot of energy.
As per a recent PTI report, the study on this matter came soon after Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu had asked for a separate time zone for India’s North East region.
The Gauhati High Court had, in March, dismissed a public interest litigation seeking directions to the Union government to have a separate time zone for the North East.
This is also not the first time a study has been done on having two different time zones in the country. In 2012, Dilip Ahuja and DP Sen Gupta from Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Advance Studies had suggested that instead of two separate zones, the smarter thing to do would be to advance Indian Standard Time by half an hour. According to them, India would save 2.7 billion units of electricity every year by shifting the IST meridian eastward.
As of now, the country’s standard time is defined by the 82.5E longitude that passes through Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. If it were to be advanced by half an hour, the defining longitude would be 90E near the Assam-Bengal border.
