Assam Tea Gardens An Hour ''Ahead'' of India

By Rituraj Borthakur

Jorhat (Assam) Oct 6 : If tea garden workers in Assam are already an hour into their job in the morning of plucking tea leaves and the rest of India haven't even started for the workplace, don't be surprised because the day begins early in the gardens thanks to a British legacy.

Tea gardens here follow a time zone, an hour in advance than the Indian Standard Time, which was introduced during British days keeping in mind the early sunrise in this part of the country.


"Since the sun sets early in this part of India, so work needs to be started early too. That was the main reason why the British had an advanced timing system for the tea industry," Dipanjol Deka, secretary of Tea Association of India, said.

He explained that the British days were different from today's. There was no electricity, modern facilities or even awareness regarding timing among tea garden workers. So, such a system had also to be adopted so that people worked expeditiously and efficiently.

And the system, he said, had served its purpose too by increasing productivity of tea garden workers.

In India, the east-west distance of more than 2,000 km covers over 28 degrees of longitude, resulting in the sun rising and setting almost two hours earlier on India's eastern border than in the Rann of Kutch in the far west.

"We are losing daylight in the east. In other countries with big geographical area, there are separate time zones. The British had realized this.

The separate time was also practiced in the oil industry, but later on the system was abolished," senior faculty of Shillong IIM Sanjib Kakoty observes. .