The State Duma will take up discussion of a bill in September to undo a law signed by then-President Dmitry Medvedev to observe daylight-saving time year-round, the Duma's health committee head said Wednesday.
"I am currently preparing a bill, which will be finished over the summer, and it will be submitted to the State Duma in early September," committee chairman Sergei Kalashnikov told RIA-Novosti.
Russia has observed permanent "summer time" since 2011, when it moved clocks forward in March and did not set them back in the fall as the rest of Europe did.
But Kalashnikov said observing daylight-saving year-round adversely affects the health of Russian citizens, and many have complained of disrupted routines.
Ironically, health concerns were one of the central reasons cited by Medvedev when he enacted the policy, stressing that "the need to adapt is connected to stress and illnesses."
Scientific studies show more suicides and heart attacks occur immediately after a shift to daylight-saving time, and that switching clocks back and forth causes more pollution, but citizens have expressed discontent after a winter full of dark mornings.
President Vladimir Putin has also said on more than one occasion that if people felt strongly that the change was a mistake, the government may turn back the clock on the change.
Russia had previously observed daylight-saving since it was introduced by the Soviet Union in 1981.
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