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Tussle over time ticks on
By Vidushi Seneviratne
Should Sri Lanka standard time be changed? With the President’s decision to turn the clock back half an hour on April 14, the issue has been hotly debated over the past few weeks. The move will put Sri Lanka five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and in line with neighbouring India.

In May 1996, in the hope of lowering energy consumption, Sri Lankan standard time was advanced by one hour, and following opposition to the move, reduced by half an hour, in October the same year. This change resulted in daylight saving, assisting the country both in increasing productivity as well as to cut down on power wastage.

So why the sudden move? The President’s decision is mainly in response to parents’ complaints that as a result of the present time, children have to rise very early to go to school and travel very often while it is still dark.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Director of the Media Division of the Presidential Secretariat Lucien Rajakarunanayake said the circumstances differ now. “The reasons to advance the standard time that existed in 1996 don’t exist now. The bad conditions we had back then, where we needed eight-hour long power cuts and so on, are not present any more,” he said He added that this move would in a way make Sri Lanka a part of a regional time, making business with India easier.

But according to a statement issued by space prophet Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Sri Lanka standard time was adjusted mainly because of the need to be able to deal with the rest of the world, conveniently. “In today’s rapidly globalizing world, Sri Lanka cannot afford to keep changing a fundamental attribute like standard time every few years,” was the British science fiction guru’s opinion.
Sir Clarke raised an issue uppermost in the minds of most Sri Lankans, that of energy saving. “As we can recall, the clock was adjusted in 1996 during a major electricity shortage as a measure of daylight saving.

A decade later, Sri Lanka is still struggling to meet the growing energy demands and spending vast amounts on imported oil that generates more than half our electricity supply.” Pointing out that Ceylon Electricity Board data gives the electricity use load in the evenings as considerably more than that in the mornings, he says, “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.”

Addressing the issue of the present time requiring children to leave home for school fairly early, he suggested that school sessions start later. For example, in India schools generally begin at 9.30 or 10 a.m., and a move such as this could easily be adopted in Sri Lanka as well, since an extra half an hour of daylight remains in the evenings.

Prof. Chandana Jayaratne, senior lecturer in Physics, University of Colombo too was of the opinion that the move was quite pointless. “It’s bad for a country to go through such changes frequently. There are numerous disadvantages which range from extra energy consumption to disruption in business processes in the global context,” he said. Since Sri Lanka engages in frequent business deals with countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong, this time change will cause great inconvenience to people in the business field, he said.

“Before the last time change was done in 1996, there was much discussion amongst the concerned parties, with an eleven member committee appointed as well. The move was based on cutting down on the energy consumption as well as day-light saving. But this time around, there has been no such discussion regarding this matter. With the present standard time, people are getting up early and leaving work early as well, saving energy. But the end result of this proposed change, will be people using up more energy, plus Sri Lanka becoming a lazy nation,” says Prof. Jayaratne.

The move to put the clock back will have repercussions on the corporate sector as well. When The Sunday Times spoke to Deva Rodrigo, Chairman of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, and senior partner PricewaterhouseCoopers, he gave many reasons as to why the government should reconsider its decision.

“Commencing and closing offices half an hour ahead results in lower electricity consumption, which is an obvious necessity for Sri Lanka in every way. Also, under the present system, the local time is easily determined by the addition of complete hours, as opposed to the addition of fractions which will be encountered by the proposed change to five and a half hours.” Mr. Rodrigo added that should the proposed change occur, airline schedules and overseas business communications will be disrupted.

Accepting that religious rituals are based on the old standard time, he said that the community however has adjusted to the time difference adopted by religious institutions.

This brings the debate to another issue presented in favour of the President’s decision. With many Sri Lankans observing auspicious times, some argue that there should be one standard time for the country, to make calculations convenient. But experts in the field of astrology say that the time change does not really make a difference to them since the advancement of the standard time in 1996 was not incorporated in their system.

“The changes in the standard time do affect the computations needed for almanacs and so on, but the change of time didn’t really have a huge effect on astrology in general, as we stuck to the old time,” said an informed source on the subject.

Santhana Krishna Iyer, a priest of the Old Kathiresan Temple, Bambalapitya agrees. “Calculations for religious affairs are done according to the old time, so the time changes don’t really make a difference to us. The mathematical calculations for the Vakiya Panchangam, which is our almanac, is done in Jaffna, and these time differences have had no real impact on any of it.” Asked whether the present time is a hindrance to the pooja times, he explained that since they are decided according to the New Year, there is no problem as such.

“I feel the President’s decision will be in great favour of the school-going children who have to wake up extra early to go to school,” says Ms. R. Wickramasinghe, mother of two teenagers. “Children these days have so much school work and the workload itself is so heavy, that they need all the rest they can get.”

Come April 14, all clocks will be turned back half an hour. Or considering all stakeholders, will wiser counsel prevail?

No effect on peak period
With the debate revolving mainly on the issue of energy consumption, the Ceylon Electricity Board is an obvious stakeholder in the issue. However, the proposed time change will have no significant effect on the consumption of electricity, according to CEB General Manager Ranjith Fonseka. “Since the adjustment is just half an hour, there won’t be significant effect on the peak period,” he said.

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