A group of scientists have suggested pushing the Indian Standard Time (IST) by half-an-hour to six hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) citing several benefits, including peak load energy savings to the tune of 16 per cent.
The new suggestion avoids the risks associated with introducing two separate time zones, a proposal that has already been rejected by the government.
“We propose advancing of the Indian Standard Time by half-an-hour to being six hours ahead of the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC),” senior scientists Dilip Ahuja and D P Sen Gupta said in a communication in ‘Current Science’.
Such an advance would give an extra 30 minutes of daylight in the evenings when it is most useful for all of us.
They suggest advancing the IST from being the time at 82.5 degrees east on the longitude (Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh) to 90 degrees east on the longitude (Bengal-Assam border).
This move would make the IST six hours ahead of GMT, or the UTC, and make it the same as Bangladesh Standard Time.
The scientists said that the total saving extrapolated for the year came to approximately 1.82 terra watt hour (TWh) out of the total nation-wide consumption of 592 TWh during 2003-04, which might not seem large.
“The percentage savings in the evening peak energy, however, are about 16 per cent, which is substantial,” they said.
The duo calculated the money value of the savings in the range of Rs 1,000 crore every year. (Agencies)
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Advance IST to save energy
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