WHAT RANKLES IS THAT ASSAM ~ WHICH IS SEEN AS THE LEADER OF THE REGION AND SHOULD HAVE SPEARHEADED THIS CAMPaIGN FOR THE ENTIRE NORTH-EAST ~ HAS DECIDED TO GO IT ALONE, says Patricia Mukhim

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has the habit of turning serious issues into gaffes. Speaking about the mounds of garbage in and around Guwahati some time back, he said garbage was a sign of development. When confronted with any issue such as violence and conflict in Assam, he dismisses it with the avowal that violence is universal and happens everywhere. These days very few people take him seriously, least of all the media. At the beginning of this year, Gogoi raked up the issue of a new time zone for Assam, which, he said, would be 60 minutes ahead of Indian Standard Time. While this is not a new proposition as far as Assam is concerned since the tea gardens have maintained this one hour-plus mark since the time of the British (who recognised that much could get done in this one hour), the fact that one chief minister could think of something like this solitarily is bizarre. Countries such as the USA, Russia, which have huge latitudinal differences, do have different time zones. Travelling in the USA from east to west, for instance, means that you have to keep adjusting your watch to the local time. But that happens across zones and regions and not just in one or two states. 
There is no gainsaying that the Northeastern region of this country could save daylight hours by setting a new time zone. In this region the sun rises early during the summer months and sets early in the winter. In the rest of India, particularly in the western parts, the sun is up until 8 pm in the summer months while in the North-east it sets by 6 pm. In winter, it gets dark by about 4.30 pm, after which most people are homebound. Since IST corresponds to 82.5 East longitude where Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh is located, the region east of the line has fewer daylight hours than in the west. Hence, Gogoi&’s argument that the new time zone would help save energy and increase productivity is also not rocket science.
While no one will fault Gogoi for his proposal, what rankles is that Assam, which is seen as the leader of the North-eastern states and should have spearheaded this time-saving campaign for the entire region, has decided to go it alone. After all, each of the seven states stands to gain from this new time zone. Human productivity could have increased and energy been saved. A separate time zone only for Assam is unlikely to gain any traction with the Centre. How can one state in the country go by a separate time zone? Will it not affect the other neighbouring states in the region? The ramifications of introducing a new time zone within the country are many. How will the Indian Railways adjust to this new time zone without avoiding a collision? Some have also argued that if the North-eastern region has a different time zone it would intensify the sense of distance that it feels vis-a-vis the rest of India. But that is no reason to put off the matter indefinitely.
In Nepal, for instance, all schools start at 7 am. This would mean that children and their parents have to wake up latest by 5 am. Schools give over by 1 pm. This gives the children enough time for recreation and for their homework. In Assam and elsewhere, schools run by the Army or Air Force start at 7.30 am. So it is not impossible to change the school timings. Those likely to veto the proposal for a new time zone are government employees who are used to a laidback attitude of reaching office at midday and leaving by 4 pm. Work culture is non-existent in the North-eastern states.
Governments must lose crores of rupees annually in paying for work not accomplished and for late attendance. Incidentally, this is a form of corruption that is far worse than stealing money. Stealing time everyday in their entire service careers is corruption. Sadly, no government has had the spine to take disciplinary action against errant employees.
The North-eastern states could gain immensely by pushing the clock ahead by even two hours. If governments could enforce a work culture in their employees and strictly implement their arrival and departure timings, the way the tea garden managers clock their workers, perhaps the Northeastern states would develop faster and show marked progress. Students too would gain immensely from this since at present they have very little daylight hours after they return from school during November-December.
According to Wikipedia, Indian Standard Time is calculated on the basis of 82.5° E longitude, in Shankargarh Fort (25.15°N 82.5°E — in Allahabad district in Uttar Pradesh — which is nearly on the corresponding longitude reference line. The country&’s east-west distance of more than 2,933 km covers over 28 degrees of longitude, resulting in the sun rising and setting almost two hours earlier on India&’s eastern border than in the Rann of Kutch in the far west. It is felt that people of the  Northeastern states could  advance their clocks with the early sunrise and avoid the extra consumption of energy after daylight hours.  In the late 1980s, a team of researchers proposed separating the country into two or three time zones to conserve energy. But because the system recommended was a return to British-era time zones, they were not adopted. 
Some researchers, including those from the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, have proposed that IST be set forward by half an hour so that it is six hours ahead of Universal Coordinated Time. This will mean advancing the point of reckoning at 82.5° East to 90° East, which will fall at a longitude along the West Bengal-Assam border. This would address the demand for a new time zone without complicating things too much and adjusting to the timings in other states.
Again, in 2001 the government established a four-member committee under the Union ministry of Science and Technology to examine the need for multiple time zones and daylight saving. The findings of the committee were presented to Parliament in 2004 by Union minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal but they did not recommend changes to the unified system, stating that “the prime meridian was chosen with reference to a central station, and that the expanse of the Indian State was not large”. Though the government has consistently refused to split the country into multiple time zones, there are provisions in labour laws such as the Plantations Labour Act, 1951, which allow the Central and state governments to define and set the local time for a particular industrial area, hence the Tea Garden Time or Chai Bagan Time in Assam.
Noted filmmaker Jahnu Barua has been a strong votary for this change for the past 25 years. He even submitted a proposal to that effect to the Ministry for Development of the North-eastern Regionin 2010, but nothing has happened. Now Tarun Gogoi has revisited the issue. But it remains to be seen how serious he is at pushing for this change,  considering that it involves a revolutionary mindset change.
    The people of Assam are known as lahe lahe (laid back) in a state where everything is allowed to happen in its own time. One hopes that the campaign for a separate time zone becomes a reality so that those who are used to rising after sunrise would at least see the sun and benefit from its health-giving virtues.

THE WRITER IS EDITOR, THE SHILLONG TIMES, AND CAN BE
CONTACTED AT patricia17@rediffmail.com