Current Time in Cities on IST

Why every Indian city shows the same time

A flight from Mumbai to Kolkata crosses nearly 18° of longitude. The clock on the wall does not move. No Indian city changes its time when you travel east to west. The entire country runs on one offset.

Every city uses IST, fixed at five and a half hours ahead of UTC. The IANA identifier Asia/Kolkata covers the whole nation. No daylight saving time operates in 2026 or 2027. The offset never shifts.

The solar time difference between Gujarat in the west and Arunachal Pradesh in the east is about two hours. But the clocks are identical. Northeast cities experience early sunrises while following the same IST as the rest of India.

Which Indian metros run on IST?

These six cities hold over 40 million people. Their clocks are always the same. A 10:00 meeting in Mumbai is a 10:00 meeting in Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. No conversion needed.

For individual city details, see the pages for Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Kolkata.

State capitals on India Standard Time

Every state capital in India runs on IST. Here is the full list:

No clock change between any of these cities. The time in Bhopal is the time in Itanagar is the time in Srinagar.

Why northeast cities keep IST despite the early sun

The northeast experiences the most extreme solar mismatch. The clocks remain IST.

This has led to local workarounds. Some tea gardens in Assam unofficially operate on "Chaibagan Time" (UTC+6:30), one hour ahead of IST, to use daylight better. This is a non-statutory practice. The official time everywhere is IST.

Multiple proposals have tried to create a second time zone for the northeast (IST-I at UTC+6:00). A 2006 Planning Commission report recommended it. A 2018 CSIR-NPL proposal suggested it. A 2021 parliamentary question discussed it. None were adopted. India continues with one zone.

For more on this, see the India one time zone explained article and the Chaibagan Time Assam page.

Union territories and their IST clocks

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands sit at 92°E, 94°E longitude, nearly 10° east of the IST meridian (82.5°E). Their solar noon is roughly 40 minutes earlier than Delhi's. But the time is the same. Lakshadweep, at 72°E, has a solar noon roughly 42 minutes later. Same clock.