Do you agree that the demand for a separate time zone for North East has valid reasons? Looking at India's size, discuss the plausible solution to the problem faced by residents of North East due to IST.

India’s vast geographical expanse accounts for the time difference (approximately 2 Hrs) in sunrise and sunset between the eastern and western part of India. However, one cannot do much about this time lag but it does pose problems and hampered productivity for the people of North East, that lead to the demand of creating a separate time zone for north eastern states that would be beneficial in a number of ways, as per the demands.
It is also speculated that north eastern states have wasted electricity worth 94,900 crore rupees owing to the daily time lag. This daily wastage of power consumption and Daylight hours prompted the idea of separate time zone for the region.
How the problem can be solved?
Catering to the problem of geographical expanse would further distance the North Eastern states from the mainland, this is precisely the plea given by the subsequent governments on the separation of time zones issue. This is a vaild assumption in a place like India where there is so much diversity. Further, it would create a plethora of confusions and complexities, which may even hamper internal / external security of the country given the volatility in the North East region.
One solution may be to ape the western countries like USA and Canada having many time zones within a country. In my opinion, the separate time zones will indeed enhance the region’s productivity but it will also bring the numerous structural issues like maintenance of records and flight timings etc.
A plausible solution would be to solve the problem as the British did. Britishers were quick to analyze and solve the issue, they didn’t go for the separate time zone but they did take care of the time lag for the tea plantation workers by changing office timings of the workers by one and half hours earlier than the people in the west.