Did You Know?
Pakistan Tried Daylight Saving Three Times and Gave Up Three Times
Pakistan runs on UTC+5, all year, and has done since 2009. That flat statement conceals three separate attempts to do otherwise, each of which collapsed.
2002. Clocks went forward on 7 April and back on 6 October, on a cabinet decision made "to make maximum use of daylight and to save energy." It was discontinued after a single year. It had met with public controversy and resistance.
2008. Reinstated in the middle of an acute power crisis. Pakistan was facing a shortfall of around 4,000 megawatts, driven partly by a 50% collapse in hydropower output as river levels fell. Urban areas were enduring eight to twelve hours of power cuts a day. Clocks went forward on 1 June, originally to run until 31 August, then extended to 1 November — an extension that pushed daylight saving straight through Ramadan, which began that September.
2009. One more attempt, 15 April to 1 November. Then nothing. Pakistan has not moved its clocks since.
The logic was always the same and always sound on paper: peak electricity demand in Pakistan falls between six and ten in the evening, when everybody comes home and turns on lights, fans and air conditioning. Shift the clock forward and you push some of that demand back into daylight. Three times the experiment was run. Three times it was abandoned.
The clock: here is the detail that makes it genuinely strange.
During those daylight saving periods Pakistan moved from UTC+5 to UTC+6. India, immediately to its east, sits on UTC+5:30 and does not observe daylight saving at all.
Which means that for several months in 2002, 2008 and 2009, Pakistan was half an hour ahead of the country to its east. The sun reached India first and Pakistan got to the hour first. Karachi, at 67° east, was running roughly an hour and a half ahead of its own solar time.
Three times the country tried to borrow an hour of morning daylight for the evening. Three times it handed it back.
Sources
- Simple Wikipedia, *Time in Pakistan* (Dates 2002, 2008, 2009; half an hour behind India)
- Wikipedia, *Pakistan Standard Time* (2002: public controversy and resistance; discontinued the same year)
- timeanddate.com, *Pakistan turns to daylight saving to address power crisis* (4,000 MW shortfall; 50% drop in hydropower)
- timeanddate.com, *Pakistan Extends Daylight Saving Hours in 2008*
- GeneralBlue, *Pakistan Summer Time* (18:00–22:00 evening demand peak; 8–12 hour outages)