India Mandates Indian Standard Time (IST)

New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) The government has decided to make mandatory the use of Indian Standard Time for all legal, commercial, digital and administrative activities, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said on Wednesday.

This initiative will translate into more secure digital transactions, accurate billing in utilities, reduced cybercrime risks and synchronized timekeeping in transportation and communication. Presently, several systems rely on foreign sources of time.

To make Indian Standard Time (IST) mandatory, the government will shortly notify Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2025. The draft rules were issued in January 2025 for stakeholders' feedback.

On Wednesday, the Department of Consumer Affairs organized a round table conference on Time Dissemination here.

Joshi emphasized on the strategic significance of the Time Dissemination Project being implemented by the department in collaboration with CSIR-NPL and ISRO.

He said the upcoming rules will mandate synchronization of all legal, commercial, digital and administrative activities with IST, "prohibiting the use of alternative time references unless explicitly authorised".

"We are notifying the rules. In that, we are now One Nation One Time... These rules will be mandated very shortly. Exact date will be decided at a later stage," Joshi told reporters here.

"In today's data-driven world, the un-synchronised clocks lead to digital mismatches, investigation challenges and network inefficiencies. Several systems currently rely on foreign timing sources like GPS, posing the risk of cyber attacks, inconsistency and non-traceable time stamps," he said.

This project addresses a long-standing gap of institutionalising the IST as the official legal time of India, the minister said.

"Since we have decided to implement and notify these rules...and that is going to be mandatory, we had a round table conference of all stakeholders...," the minister said adding that "very shortly, IST will be a reality. We will have our own time".

The conference witnessed active participation from over 100 stakeholders representing sectors, including telecom, financial services and railways.

"For the common man, this initiative translates into more secure digital transactions, accurate billing in utilities, reduced cybercrime risks and synchronized timekeeping in transportation and communication, ensuring fairness, transparency, and trust in day-to-day services," an official statement said.

The minister underscored that precise and uniform dissemination of IST across sectors such as financial markets, power grids, telecommunications, transportation and others are essential to ensuring fairness, accuracy and national security.

"The initiative aims to deliver IST with millisecond to microsecond accuracy through five Regional Reference Standard Laboratories (RRSLs) equipped with atomic clocks and secure synchronization protocols like NTP and PTP," it added.

Nidhi Khare, secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, said " So far we were dependent on external sources for time dissemination. We have Indianised the entire ecosystem of time and the department is now ready with the dissemination process."

She stressed on the need for accurate, secure and legally mandated dissemination of IST to ensure uniformity across strategic and non-strategic sectors.

She explained that under the Time Dissemination Project, the department in collaboration with CSIR-NPL and ISRO is establishing an advanced infrastructure comprising five Regional Reference Standard Laboratories (RRSLs) in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Faridabad, and Guwahati.

These centres are being equipped with atomic clocks and secure synchronization systems using Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Precision Time Protocol (PTP) to ensure millisecond to microsecond accuracy.

The secretary's presentation outlined the risks posed by current reliance on foreign time sources, including cybersecurity vulnerabilities like spoofing and jamming.

She stated that the implementation of these rules would be a crucial step toward ensuring traceability, enhancing operational reliability, and fostering national time sovereignty.

The initiative is a major step in building a trusted and standardized digital ecosystem across the country.

The Time Dissemination initiative is the result of sustained inter-ministerial coordination and technical consultations since 2018.

Participating stakeholders supported the government's plan to notify the rules, the statement said.