08/10/2007, India - "Energy savings from advancing the Indian Standard Time by half an hour",
by Dilip R. Ahuja and D. P. Sen Gupta are in the National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISc Campus, Bangalore;
CURRENT SCIENCE, 298 VOL. 93, NO. 3
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Below are excerpts from an article that appeared in the Indian publication of CURRENT SCIENCE, 298 VOL. 93, NO. 3
.... We propose advancing of the Indian Standard
Time by half an hour to being six hours ahead of the Universal Coordinated Time...
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...In this article we review the rationales
for introducing multiple time zones and daylight
saving time (DST) and for rejecting both. In the northern
hemisphere, DST involves setting clocks ahead by an hour
in spring and setting them back by an hour in the fall. In
the southern hemisphere, the two adjustments are reversed.
We propose an alternative, in effect a year-long DST, which
avoids the risks associated with introducing multiple time
zones or with bi-annual changes in DST...
......................
...India extends from 68°07 to 97° 25 E. Although this
spread of more than 29° is wide enough for two time zones,
India has chosen a single Indian Standard Time (IST)
based on the longitude passing through 82.5° E, almost the
exact east-west centre of the country - five and a half
hours ahead of the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC).
Having two time zones has the advantage of saving daylight,
as suggested recently by the Planning Commission
and perhaps the advantage of reducing the peak load deficit.
The disadvantages are that it would increase the risk
of train accidents across the zonal boundary and, some
fear that it may increase separatist tendencies. Moreover,
there is no obvious sparsely populated section in the middle
of the country wherein to draw the boundary between
the two zones. All previous analyses have concluded that
the savings in energy are not large enough to justify the
increased risks that two time zones would entail.
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The proposal
We propose that we advance, once and for, all IST from
being the time at the 82.5°E long. (Mirzapur District, Uttar
Pradesh) to 90°E (Bengal-Assam border), i.e. from being
5 h 30 min ahead of UTC to being 6 h ahead of UTC and
that we do not cycle the clocks annually.
......................
Other benefits ...
Conformity with most regions of the world
A majority of countries, generally those that are closer to
the equator, do not observe DST. Only about 70 countries
observe DST , but 114 regions (because some countries
have multiple time zones) do so.
.... 63% of the regions, mostly in the tropics, is without annual
DST cycles. However, only 5% of the regions has
non-integral time shifts from UTC - shifts of one-, two-, or
three-quarters of an hour. Advancing IST by half an hour
will bring us in conformity with the choices made by
95% of the regions in the world.
......................
... If this proposal of advancing IST is found acceptable,
we believe that 1-2 years would suffice to plan
for a smooth transition.
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