Saturday, September 26, 2009

Effective way of improving productivity in India?

One of the biggest changes I have felt in my life since I moved from Kolkata to Mumbai was the concept of 8'o clock in the morning.

In Kolkata, 8'o clock means BRIGHT sun and daylight. In Mumbai 8'o clock is pleasant and chilly. While 7 pm in Kolkata almost means dead of the night, in Mumbai I am just about leaving office and there are still some hints of sunlight.

So now I think, is it important that the concept of 8'o clock be uniform across the country? Would introducing two time zones in the country aid it in any way ? I think it would lead to better work co-ordination and help tremendously in an increasing global economy. Agree it would lead to massive confusion in the beginning but people would learn to adapt. It might just spur a mini economy of its own with people coming out with new products to help others adapt to the time zone. Imagine, going from Mumbai to Kolkata, we would adjust our watches!

Think of the situation today. If some one from the North East wants to schedule a meeting then he would probably be most productive at 8'o clock and want to keep the meeting at that time with his western India counterpart. On the other hand in Western India, 8'o clock would be when people would start to get out of their homes. (This I am assuming that people will adjust to the solar clock and instead of having a 9to5 office timing will have something like a 7 to 3 office)

If my assumption is "incorrect" then we are already in a big bowl of pea soup. People would start their offices at 9 but by the time it would be 5, the skies would be pitch dark as the sun would have set by then(in context of Eastern India). Which means, that they would need to make special arrangements to travel in the dark. It means more electricity consumption for lighting up street lamps, car headlamps etc.

The SUN drives everything. Humans tend to carry out maximum activities in daylight and in its absence we wait for the next day to begin (ya, i know not much nightlife for me!). Isnt this why Benjamin Franklin introduced Daylight "Saving" Time (come on, I know you saw National Treasure, even though you hate the guts of the producer) so that the extra long hour of the day could be used productively?

Anyways, as per MapsOfIndia, India's longitudinal expanse is from 68degrees 7 and 97degrees25 east. Theoretically, with a change in 15 degrees, half an hour should be added / subtracted from GMT.

Now, the part which baffles me - When we look at US, there are 4 time zones and when you look at China they dont have a time zone as of now. (they used to have 5 time zones half a century ago)

This is one point I am not able to understand as China is doing fantastic in terms of productivity and all the global economy stuff without having multiple time zones?

What do you people think ?

No comments: