Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution has released the Draft Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2025, for public feedback. These rules, notified under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, establish the framework for synchronizing all official and commercial activities in India with Indian Standard Time (IST), which is based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) with a +5:30 offset. The CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) will serve as the custodian of IST. Provisions include mandatory IST usage in legal, administrative, and commercial contexts, penalties for non-compliance, and allowances for specific deviations under authorized circumstances. Guidelines address time synchronization procedures, cybersecurity measures, and monitoring mechanisms. Stakeholders are encouraged to review the draft rules and provide comments by 14th February 2025 via designated email addresses. The complete draft is available on the Department of Consumer Affairs’ website.
I-9/1/2025-W&M
Government of India
Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution
Department of Consumer Affairs
Legal Metrology Division
Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi-01
Dated: 15.01.2025
Subject– Draft Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2025- comments from stakeholders – reg.
Undersigned is directed to refer to the above mentioned subject and to state that the Draft Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2025 are placed in the website of the Department www.consumeraffairs.nic.in for seeking comments from all stakeholders by 14.02.2025. The comments may be sent to email-ID: dirwm-ca@nic.in / ashutosh.agarwal13@nic.in / mk.naik72@gov.in.
(Ashutosh Agarwal) Director
(Legal Metrology)
Ph: 011-23389489
Email: dirwm-ca@nic.in
To:
All Stakeholders
[TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE OF INDIA, EXTRAORDINARY, PART II, SECTION 3, SUB-SECTION (i)]
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD AND PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION
(DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS)
NOTIFICATION
New Delhi, the ……………………… 2025.
In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) read with clauses (a), (b), (d), and (e) of sub-section (2) of section 52 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, (1 of 2010), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules, namely: –
1. Short title and commencement.-
(1) These rules may be called as the Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2024.
(2) They shall come into force after 180 days from date of publication of these rule in the official gazette.
(3) These rules shall prescribe the manner, procedure and other requirements for the implementation of the Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2024 and to facilitate the compliance therewith and to achieve the objectives thereof.
2. Definitions.–
In these rules, unless the context otherwise requires,-
(1) “Act” means the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 (1 of 2010)
(2) “Schedule” means Schedule appended to these rules;
(3) “Section” means a section of the Act;
(4) “Coordinated Universal Time” means Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC) as determined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM)
(5) “UTC(NPLI)” means realization of UTC at CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) in India.
(6) “standard time “ in India shall be five and half hour in advance of Coordinated Universal Time – National Physical Laboratory, India (UTC-NPLI)
(7) “accuracy” means is the degree of correctness of reference clock.
(8) “Custodian of Indian Standard Time (IST®)” is the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL).
(9) Words and expression used in these rules and not defined but defined in the other Act shall have the same meanings respectively assigned to them in the Act.
Chapter II
Indian Standard Time (IST)
3. Base unit of Time.-
The base unit of time shall be the second, symbol s, which is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the cesium frequency ΔVcs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of caesium-133 atom to be 9192631770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s-1
4. Indian Standard Time (IST).-
(1) Indian Standard Time (IST) is based on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) with an offset of +5:30 hours. It serves as the official time of India and all activities and transactions across the country shall be synchronized with IST. CSIR-NPL is responsible for the maintenance and for keeping it traceable to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) provided by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) located in Sevres, France.
(2) Standard Format of Time is:- HH:MM:SS
Where H: means Hours
M: means Minutes
S: means Seconds
(3) Standard format for distribution of Time with date is: DD-MM-YYYY-HH:MM:SS
Where D: means Day
M: means Month
Y: means Year
Chapter III
Mandatory use of Indian Standard Time (IST)
5. Reference to Time.-
All references to time in legal, administrative, and official documents shall be considered to refer to Indian Standard Time (IST), unless explicitly stated otherwise.
6. Times mentioned in Acts, rules, or instruments to mean standard time.-
Indian Standard Time (IST) shall be the mandatory time reference across all sectors, including commerce, transport, public administration, legal contracts, and financial operations.
7. Prohibition of use, display, etc, otherwise than Indian Standard Time (IST).-
No person or entity shall use, display, or record time other than Indian Standard Time (IST) for official or commercial purposes.
Provided that any law in force or order or government direction or guidelines permits the same.
Provided further display of time of other countries or zones mentioning clearly the name of country or zone with display of IST is permitted which is not used for any legal, administrative and official purposes.
8. Display and Use of the Indian Standard Time.-
All government offices and public institutions shall display Indian Standard Time (IST) on all time-keeping devices, ensuring synchronization through reliable sources like Network Time Protocol (NTP) or Precision Time Protocol (PTP) or any other source. Necessary guidelines or advisories for the implementation shall be issued by the Central Government from time to time.
9. Cybersecurity and Resiliency.-
(i) The consumer’s time-synchronization system should ensure reliability, availability, robustness, including cybersecurity features to mitigate malicious attacks.
(ii) Consumers shall have terrestrial based time distribution from RRSLs in addition to NavIC time reference signal.
(iii) The time-synchronization system can use alternate reference in case of any jamming or spoofing of GNSS or NavIC reference or in case of cyber-attacks.
10. Procedure in Time Synchronization.-
To ensure the timely synchronization of timescales and devices connected thereto, necessary guidelines or advisories shall be issued by the Central Government from time to time.
Chapter IV
Exception to use of Indian Standard Time (IST)
11. Authorized Deviations:
The use of alternative timescales (GMT, etc.) is permitted for specific purposes such as astronomy, navigation, scientific research, etc. subject to prior permission and compliance with government directives.
12. Compliance and Monitoring:
(i) The timescales shall be periodically audited to ensure compliance across sectors.
(ii) Specific standards for synchronization accuracy, implementation and reporting mechanisms shall be outlined in subsequent advisories or guidelines.
13. Penalties for Non-Compliance:
Violations of the provisions of the Act or Rules shall attract penalties including fines or other actions as determined by the authorised persons.
14. Exception:
Nothing in this Rule shall affect the use of UTC-NPLI for purposes as prescribed by Central Government from time to time.
[File No. I-9/1/2025-W&M]
(Anupam Mishra)
Joint Secretary to the Government of India
