Overview
- The Department of Consumer Affairs notified the Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules on August 27, starting a 180-day countdown that will make IST the legal time reference around March 2027.
- Under the rules, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory will maintain India’s primary time scale while Regional Reference Standard Laboratories, ISRO’s NavIC and other authorised sources must disseminate official IST.
- Technical trials in July 2026 used White Rabbit technology at RRSL Bengaluru and a secure link to NSE Chennai to show how banks, exchanges and telecoms can receive sub-microsecond IST.
- Organisations must use multiple authorised timing sources, guard against spoofing and jamming, keep contingency systems such as atomic clocks where needed, and face penalties under the Legal Metrology Act for non-compliance.
- The change aims to cut reliance on foreign timing sources and will affect time-sensitive services from digital payments and stock exchanges to railways, power grids and data centres, creating costs for system upgrades and clearer transaction timestamps for users.