A little tinkering with the Indian Standard Time might be able to save the country more than two billion units of power of year.
Sounds hard to believe, but this is what researchers from the National Institute of Advanced Studieshave proposed.
DP Sengupta and Dilip R Ahuja of NIAS say if the IST is advanced by half an hour, everything from the consumption of energy to crime rate would come down.
“We recommend advancing the time by half an hour, so it will be GMT +6 hours rather than GMT +5.30 hours,” says Sengupta, visiting professor at NIAS. “And when we say saving energy, we mean saving electricity that’s used for lighting. Half an hour is still not that much of a time that people’s habits would be changed, and this way they are more in the sunlight, rather than sleeping through it,” says Sengupta, visiting professor at NIAS. According to the report, this would save more than two billion units a year. “This saves the government close to Rs1,400 crore each year,” says Ahuja, Isro professor of Science and Technology Policy, NIAS.
The benefits of advancing the time, while incidental, are also substantial say the scientists. “The data from Bangalore shows that the maximum number of accidents happen at night when people are returning from work. There will be more usable light in the evening,” says Ahuja. They also say that given that office timings would not change along with the standard time “petty crimes, like purse snatchings, which happen in the dark, might go down as well as people will be home while there’s still light outside”.
They also contend that fewer flights would be cancelled since fog, which occurs in the morning, will clear out much earlier with the new ISI.
The two scientists also oppose the idea of having two time zones. “Two time zones would be worse as energy savings would be very minimal, and it poses other problems as well. Imagine a train coming from one time zone to another. It will be hard to keep track of it and accidents are bound to happen,” says Sen Gupta.
Sengupta and Ahuja also recommend a ‘regional’ synced time zone. “Right now Bhutan and Bangladesh are on GMT+6 hours. We are recommending that along with India, the common regional time be adopted by Nepal and Sri Lanka as well. Sort of like a SAARC time zone,” says Sengupta.
But the duo is uncertain if the government would take their proposal seriously. “We don’t know when it will happen, but various government departments have either been positive or neutral to this,” says Ahuja.
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