Government Unveils Secure Time Sync for Critical Infrastructure

New Delhi, July 18 – In a ceremony at Bengaluru’s Regional Reference Standard Laboratory, the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs launched a demonstration network for Indian Standard Time (IST) that leverages White Rabbit technology and the Precision Time Protocol (PTP). The system anchors IST to UTC via the NPLI and distributes it across the nation with high security.

The ministry announced that the network will provide ultra‑accurate time synchronization to sectors such as banking, financial markets, telecommunications, power distribution, transportation and digital governance. The project is the result of a collaboration among the Consumer Affairs Department, CSIR‑National Physical Laboratory and ISRO.

Minister Pralhad Joshi said that a dependable national time source is a vital element of digital public infrastructure, enhancing consumer protection, fair trade, cyber‑security, market trust and e‑governance. He added that a verification exercise linking ISRO’s RRS Lab in Bengaluru with the National Stock Exchange in Chennai has already demonstrated safe IST propagation.

During his visit to ISRO’s Bengaluru centre, the minister inspected the IST dissemination project, met the scientists and engineers involved, and praised ISRO’s role in creating a secure, indigenous time‑distribution framework. He also highlighted the "One Nation, One Time" programme as a key step toward unified national timing.