Jan.28 : If the sun rises in Kohima at 4 am, it rises in Mumbai around 6. But India is a single time zone country. This means the two-hour time gap is overlooked. In the Northeast, working and sleeping hours get postponed as the real clock differs from the official clock. Daylight hours are wasted. Unlike in the country’s west, no light is available after sunset, leading to higher power consumption. Biological clocks are disturbed.

Office starts in the Northeast six hours after daybreak as against only four in the rest of India. Because of the delayed start, the people here are less productive, less progressive, and less prosperous than those living to the west of the country’s time meridian — say Delhi or Mumbai.
Work attitudes are affected. Productivity is not a priority. We did a survey which found that more than 50 per cent of the office-goers in the Northeast reach office an hour or more late, and more than 35 per cent leave office an hour or more early. Due to the extra hours of daylight available before office hours, office-goers either wake up late or engage in personal or domestic work extensively. So, it is a tired man presenting himself for work at the office. Productivity goes down.
Recently, when Bangladesh advanced its time by an hour, making it 90 minutes ahead of India, the people of the Northeast were shocked to find that Bangladeshis have already put in one and a half hours work by the time they commence theirs, although Bangladesh lies to the west of much of north-eastern India. This is resulting in a new feeling of alienation. People are beginning to feel that the Government of India has deliberately never looked into this matter of time difference as it does not want the Northeast to prosper.
Because they follow the Indian Standard Time, the people in the Northeast conduct all their activities at the wrong time. Working hours are frittered away as official time starts late. For two-thirds of the year office time spill over into dark hours. Family problems also ensue with people returning home late. With restricted interaction in the home, the transfer of values from generation to generation is disturbed.
The total loss of productivity in the Northeast since Independence has been calculated at 25 years and 10 months. Creating a new time zone is the only way out. Northeast Time should be seven hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, and the Mainland Time six hours ahead. This will bring in tremendous positive changes, not only for the Northeast but for the entire country.

Jahnu Barua is a noted filmmaker from Assam

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Change the work culture, not time
A separate time zone for the Northeast will be self-damaging and counter-productive. Let us not immediately think of the example of other countries that have separate time zones. India is a vast country with very different cultures, languages and varying education levels in different regions. We just cannot afford one more marker of separateness based on the notion of time. A separate time zone for the north-eastern states will drive the people there further from the “mainland”, as some in the region call the rest of India. This is a psychological point, but should not be ignored.
The argument for demanding a separate time zone is that there is a distinct time difference between the rising and setting of the sun between eastern parts of India like Assam, and western parts like Delhi. People of Assam get more “morning hours” and also longer “evening hours” in their day-to-day life. As things stand now, people in the Northeast go to office when the sun is almost overhead. I agree that we waste a good part of our mornings. If that is the only reason for seeking a new time zone, it may be better to change the working hours in offices than change the clock.
Office hours can be from 9 to 4 instead of 10 to 5. The country can be made aware of this and no great inconvenience will be caused to the system on account of the change.
If we have different time zones in the country, the first casualty will be the all-needed coordination that is essential in the interface as between government and commercial and industrial establishments, media channels, communication modes, the security machinery etc.
I know adjustments can be made or worked out, but for the common man and for the simple rural folk, if “nine” in Guwahati means “eight” in Delhi, it will alienate him more.
There are many Central government offices and establishments in Assam that operate on wire and are in constant touch with the rest of India. They cannot be expected to follow the “local time”. If they do, their productivity will definitely suffer. This will be against the interest of Assam and the entire Northeast, not to say the country. If you have more time in the morning, or if the evening is long, you can utilise it in better ways and frame the day’s routine more fruitfully and productively, instead of blaming the sun.
Change the work culture, not the time — this should be the message to the people.

Col. (retd)
Manoranjan Goswami is a prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leader
from Assam

The Age debate
Northeast loses daylight hours