Gogoi favours separate time zone for NE region

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi here on Wednesday stressed the need of changing the working hours in Assam. Admitting that the state was suffering economically for sharing IST with the rest of the country, Gogoi said, “Some of the tea gardens still follow the ‘garden time’. We have asked the experts to look into it.”

In what has given teeth to the long pending demand of the Northeastern states for creating a separate time zone for the seven states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, Gogoi said, “Changing the working hour was necessary for optimum utilisation of daylight. This would result in conservation of energy. As the sun rises much earlier in this region than in the rest of the country.”

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker and former ISRO scientist Jahnu Barua said, “We have gone behind by more than a decade in productivity since independence. The total wastage of power at homes and offices of the region since Independence due to this is to the tune of Rs 94,900 crore.”