Paraguay's Chamber of Deputies reopened the debate on time changes and is studying a return to the seasonal system — with two time zones per year, summer and winter — given the low nighttime temperatures and the late sunrise, close to 7:30 or 7:40 in the morning.
The bill, sponsored by Congressman Édgar Olmedo (ANR), proposes repealing the single-time-zone law and reinstating the time changes: clocks would move forward on the first Sunday of October and back on the fourth Sunday of March. With this, Paraguay would return to operating on UTC-3 in the summer and UTC-4 in the winter.
According to the lawmaker, maintaining summer time permanently is "virtually unfeasible" and is causing harm to the economy, public safety, and health. He argues that thousands of children and young people go to school in the dark, construction workers lose about an hour of work per day, and municipal market vendors report a drop in foot traffic because customers do not show up at 7 a.m. due to the darkness.
Olmedo also highlighted the impact on the rural sector, where there is a lack of efficient public transportation, security, and adequate lighting coverage. In addition, he linked the rise in respiratory illnesses to exposure to the cold in the early morning hours, worsened by the State's shortcomings in basic services.
The congressman stated that he will request reports from education-related institutions and the productive sector before the bill is debated, to provide technical support for the proposal. The expectation is that the issue will return to the plenary in the coming weeks.
The initiative, which had been introduced before and was stalled, divides opinions: some argue that the single time zone brings stability and simplifies daily life, while others contend that returning to winter time would allow routines to be better aligned with natural light. Currently, two bills on the matter are moving through Congress — one by Olmedo in the Chamber of Deputies, and another by Senator Blanca Ovelar in the Senate.