India is set to mandate the use of Indian Standard Time across all legal, commercial, and digital systems, with formal rules to be notified shortly under the Legal Metrology Act.
Consumer Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi and Secretary Nidhi Khare on Wednesday confirmed the transition, calling it critical for cybersecurity, accuracy, and national independence. Currently, multiple systems in India rely on foreign time sources like GPS, leading to inconsistencies and risks.
While the country already had only one timezone, called IST, time was determined via foreign sources such as GPS. Time will now be derived via NavIC, short for Navigation with Indian Constellation, which is India's independent regional navigation satellite system.
The ministry held a stakeholder meeting with representatives from SEBI, NSE, railways, and telecom providers, among others. "Few suggestions and issues have been noted. We will work on them...There's no timeline for implementation as of now," Joshi said.
The move will require synchronisation with an indigenous timekeeping system based on ISRO's NavIC and atomic clocks managed by the National Physical Laboratory.
Precision timekeeping, accurate to the micro, milli, and even nanosecond, is now possible through five atomic clocks set up in Faridabad, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Bhubaneswar. The shift will affect sectors ranging from banking and telecom to stock exchanges and defence.
Authorities say past security events, including Kargil and financial scams, highlighted the need for sovereign control over time.
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