Exploring Blockchain-based Government Services in India

Abstract

Today, the world mainly relies on information that is generated and distributed among the public on a large scale, but unfortunately, the authenticity of the information is always in question. Recently, a new technological breakthrough called blockchain has redefined the enterprise of “trust”, making the information business inherently trustworthy. This chapter will focus on the ongoing exploration of blockchain, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that is considered disruptive in the industry due to its unique transparent and tamper-proof features and how it has opened up new opportunities in various sectors, including government services, whose application can provide operational efficiency and transparency in the system and create value for citizens. Similarly, with the advent of Digital India Initiatives, the government of India is moving towards being a digitally empowered nation, with technology being the prime focus. As blockchain is one of the emerging technologies in the industry, various pilot exercises are being done in an Indian context in many states. The initial part of the chapter will focus on understanding the application of blockchain in government services to gain efficiency and increase transparency and accountability in their functioning, and its implementations in government services, like the development of government certificates, land registry, creating tamper-proof voting records, vehicle registries, etc. The next part of the chapter will focus on the global adoption of blockchain, since various countries are in the league of experimenting with this technology in the public sector. One effective case of blockchain adoption and implementation in the country of Estonia will be discussed in depth, as its adoption of blockchain technology can be seen as a successful programme plan for potential blockchain applications elsewhere. Lastly, the chapter explores institutional initiatives like the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for blockchain technology, set up by Karnataka to promote blockchain and its application; regulatory approaches like the draft national strategy on blockchain, which was submitted recently by the National Institute for Smart Governance (NISG) to provide a set of policy frameworks to proactively facilitate the integration of blockchain with existing economic ecosystems; and a blockchain strategy paper by the government of India’s policy think tank NITI Aayog.