The Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) announced a national strategy for implementing blockchain technology in government initiatives, particularly e-governance services.

The 52-page document aims to build trusted digital platforms using common blockchain infrastructure and promote analysis and improvement, innovation, expertise, and software development throughout the industry.

Transfer of land and property, managing digital certificates, pharmaceutical supply chain, e-notary services, e-voting, smart grid management, and electronic health record management are among the 44 key areas where blockchains can be used, according to the ministry.

The document also takes into account blockchain-based systems run by governments in China, Brazil, the UAE, and Europe, as well as several government-led blockchain initiatives now underway.

The government has also suggested that a National Blockchain Framework be established, which may be used in areas including health, agriculture, education, and banking. Geographically distributed national-level shared infrastructure is required, according to the document, to allow citizen services at large scale and enable cross-domain application development.

Intermediate milestones for the platform's research components will include a basic framework for implementation and integration with existing infrastructure and services, reference implementations of real-world projects, and sandbox environments for building and testing applications.

Blockchain is the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies and is being utilized to develop applications for the Internet's third generation, web3.

The National Strategy on Blockchain explains the government's plans and makes recommendations for developing digital platforms.

“To meet heightened security needs, the potential of blockchain technology may be investigated in the proposed public digital platforms in diverse areas such as agriculture, health, and energy”, adds MeitY.

“The national strategy on blockchain lays forth a comprehensive plan for developing the country's blockchain infrastructure. We, as an industry, are eager to work with the government”, expresses Ashish Singhal, Founder and CEO, Coinswitch Kuber.