Financial Times

If you can turn back time ...
Several people, including Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the eminent space visionary and writer, have raised concerns over turning the clock back to Sri Lankan time in 1996.

“Who wants this? Was there any provocation for this?” asked a former top CEB official, flummoxed by the move. Indeed it seems there has been little provocation for a major development of this nature. The manner in which the decision to put the clock back by 30 minutes and back 5 ½ hours ahead of GMT was so innocuous, that it didn’t receive enough media attention.

It was Sir Arthur’s statement this week that prompted discussion on a vitally important issue – time. The government, two weeks ago, in a statement said the clock would revert back to pre-May 1996 time because parents complained that their children were forced to get up early and leave home for school when it was still dark thus taking its toll on the kids.

Reasonable point indeed and no doubt this is a burden on the kids, but not a good enough reason to make such a drastic change. Economists and other analysts argue that the whole purpose of changing the clock in 1996 was due to a major power crisis and there were eternal power cuts. Daylight savings was resorted to, to save on energy costs.

There appears to be a 1-2 percent saving on energy as a result of the clock change but the crisis has changed and we are getting deeper and deeper into debt as power consumption rises and fuel costs go up sharply.

According to Sir Arthur, Sri Lanka is still struggling to meet growing energy demands and spending vast amounts on imported oil that generates more than half of our electricity supply. “I understand from the CEB’s published data that electricity use in the evenings is considerably more than that in the mornings.

So if we put the clock back by half an hour as proposed, dusk will fall sooner -- and households will be consuming more electricity for lighting. Both the country’s generation costs and individual electricity bills could go up as a result,” he said.

The eminent writer said that in today’s rapidly globalising world, Sri Lanka cannot afford to keep changing a fundamental attribute like standard time every few years. Such a move could harm the perception of foreign investors, international banks, airlines and tourists – at a time when we are trying to attract them all, he says.

Others are in agreement with him, saying the government could have changed school times to allow children to get up at sunrise and go to school at a more decent hour.

An economist said there is bound to be a lot of confusion as people have got used to Sri Lanka being six hours ahead of GMT which is also easier for doing business with the outside world.

“If there was a need it should have been done on January 1,” said another public official, who admits however that his driver still goes by the “hari wellawe (old time).”

‘Hari wellawe,’ is what the LTTE still uses only in Kilinochchi town, currently the group’s headquarters. However, the LTTE has retained the 5 ½ hours against GMT when the rest of Sri Lanka changed, because it wanted to be different from the rest of the country or so it seems. Will it change time now, that Colombo is going back in time?

Well if the power crisis — the reason for going forward in time — hasn’t changed why go back in time?

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