Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday highlighted that the upcoming Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2025, will mandate synchronisation of all legal, commercial and administrative activities with Indian Standard Time (IST), prohibiting the use of alternative time references unless explicitly authorised.

The minister emphasised the strategic significance of the Time Dissemination Project being implemented by the Department of Consumer Affairs in collaboration with CSIR-NPL and ISRO.

Addressing a Round Table Conference on Time Dissemination at Vigyan Bhawan here, the Minister underscored that precise and uniform dissemination of IST across sectors such as financial markets, power grids, telecommunications, transportation, and others is essential to ensuring fairness, accuracy and national security.

The initiative aims to deliver IST with millisecond to microsecond accuracy through five Regional Reference Standard Laboratories (RRSLs) equipped with atomic clocks and secure synchronisation protocols like NTP and PTP, ushering in a new era of digital and administrative efficiency under the vision of ‘One Nation, One Time’, he explained.

For the common man, this initiative translates into more secure digital transactions, accurate billing in utilities, reduced cybercrime risks and synchronised timekeeping in transportation and communication, ensuring fairness, transparency, and trust in day-to-day services.

Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Nidhi Khare, in her presentation, highlighted the urgent need for accurate, secure and legally mandated dissemination of IST to ensure uniformity across strategic and non-strategic sectors.

She explained that under the Time Dissemination Project, the Department, in collaboration with CSIR-NPL and ISRO, is establishing an advanced infrastructure comprising five Regional Reference Standard Laboratories (RRSLs) in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Faridabad, and Guwahati. These centres are being equipped with atomic clocks and secure synchronisation systems using Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Precision Time Protocol (PTP) to ensure millisecond to microsecond accuracy.

The Secretary emphasised that the forthcoming Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2025, will mandate synchronisation of all legal, administrative and commercial operations with IST, making India’s timekeeping infrastructure legally enforceable, digitally secure and globally benchmarked.

Her presentation outlined the risks posed by current reliance on foreign time sources, including cybersecurity vulnerabilities like spoofing and jamming. She further stated that the implementation of these rules would be a crucial step toward ensuring traceability, enhancing operational reliability, and fostering national time sovereignty. The initiative is a major step in building a trusted and standardised digital ecosystem across the country.

The Round Table Conference witnessed active participation from over 100 stakeholders representing a broad spectrum of sectors. These included senior officials from key Government Ministries and Departments as well as public sector companies, banks and business chambers.