46% rise in use of blockchain, a boost for India

A few months ago, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman singled out the application of blockchain technologies as she addressed the third edition of FICCILEADS. Her impact statement read - the use of blockchain technology will increase by 46 per cent over the next few years. This is no longer a statement as it probably confirms the roll out of India’s blockchain era.

Governments play a vital role supporting the adoption and deployment of blockchain solutions, both as a regulator, and as buyers deploying blockchain solutions to solve critical challenges. Governments and public sector organisations are leveraging blockchain technology to abandon inefficient and siloed centralised systems as the current systems are inherently insecure and expensive, whereas blockchain networks provide structures that are more secure, agile, and cost-effective.

Globally 50+ governments are adopting blockchain solutions and over 100 use case deployments across domains identified by government agencies with a focus on digital currency, records management, trade finance, land management, digital identity, cross border and interbank payments, supply chain management being the early adopters. Now let’s shine the torch closer home now.

India’s public sector is fast emerging as a large consumer of blockchain technology as we see over 90 projects at various stages of deployment. Approximately, 50 per cent of India’s states are engaged in blockchain-related initiatives, propelling the country’s public sector blockchain adoption. Leading the adoption are use cases in land registry, farm insurance and digital certificates.

Some impact blockchain projects are emerging from several Indian states as states are collaborating with different stakeholders to accelerate blockchain adoption in public sector projects. Andhra Pradesh is working with Zebi Data and Hitachi for blockchain-based land registry solutions. They have also appointed Covalent Fund to create Velugu Core, a focused blockchain stack to maintain and manage state level data, similar to the India Stack.

The UP Government too has partnered with UNDC for the same. In West Bengal, the municipal corporations of Durgapur and Bankura have partnered with Linked, a Dutch company, to issue birth and death certificates on blockchain. Assam, has partnered with Nucleus Vision for governance and citizen facing applications. The governments of Tamil Nadu and Telangana are collaborating with multiple stakeholders from private sector, academia and start-up, for blockchain IP development and educating youth. They have also collaborated with strategic think tank, NITI Aayog, to discern cross-sector blockchain use cases.

The officials in Vizag are undertaking initiatives to use blockchain in managing state-level data. And mind you, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Summarising the benefits and the impact, we see that the secure exchange of data between citizens and government agencies reduces concerns about the data’s use and facilitates greater cooperation, allowing citizens to flourish and economies to expand and increases trust. Time, cost and risks of managing sensitive information by providing an immutable and transparent audit trail for regulatory compliance, contract management, identity management and citizen services can further the cause of implementation of blockchain technology. Blockchains will assist in overcoming the inefficiencies of imperfect information, restrictive regulation, institutional inertia, and unanticipated threats, such as cybersecurity concerns and the disruption of new business models.