New Delhi: The Department of Consumer Affairs along with the National Physical Laboratory and the India Space Research Organisation is disseminating Indian Standard Time (IST) with millisecond to microsecond accuracy, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said in a statement Monday.
This initiative aims to provide a reliable and unified timekeeping framework for all sectors in the country, it said.
The statement added that the project will use technology and infrastructure to distribute IST from five legal metrology laboratories across India. This enhanced precision is crucial for sectors like navigation, telecommunications, power grid synchronization, banking, digital governance, and advanced scientific research, including deep space navigation and gravitational wave detection.
Currently, not all Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) mandatorily adopt IST, with many relying on foreign time sources like GPS. This lack of synchronization can pose challenges to national security, real-time applications, and the smooth operation of critical infrastructure, the statement said.
To address these concerns, a high-power inter-ministerial committee, chaired by the Secretary (Consumer Affairs), has been formed to develop a policy framework, regulations, and legislation for the adoption of IST under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009. The committee includes representatives from key organizations like NPL, ISRO, IIT Kanpur, NIC, CERT-In, SEBI, and government departments such as Railways, Telecom, and Financial Services.
As a part of this initiative, the Draft Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2025, have been published for public consultation on 15 January, 2025. These draft rules aim to standardize and mandate the use of IST across all sectors, providing a legal framework for precise and uniform timekeeping. The public can submit comments on the draft rules until 14 February.
The proposed rules outline the mandatory use of IST, based on UTC with a +5:30-hour offset, as the sole time reference for all legal, administrative, and commercial activities. They also specify the synchronization of networks and technological infrastructure with IST and prohibit the use of alternative time references without explicit permission.
Government offices and public institutions are required to adopt reliable synchronization protocols like NTP and PTP. The rules also address cybersecurity measures, alternative reference mechanisms during disruptions, and compliance monitoring through audits.