Called ‘Vishvasya’, or ‘trust’ in Sanskrit, the framework seeks to establish what the Centre called “trust and transparency” in public records and databases. A note by the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) on the Framework said that the Centre’s blockchain will use three data centres across India to store data, and offer companies infrastructure and application development support to help more entities adopt the technology.
Web-3 is the decentralised version of the internet that is built on blockchain technology, and gives users greater control over their data.
Targeted apps and industries
Targeted applications and industries for India’s central blockchain framework include court stamps and judicial records, police training files, forensic applications, tracing sources of mobile applications, establishing the authenticity of central government-issued documents, and tracking of agricultural produce.
Industry stakeholders and officials involved in the entire process have welcomed the move, stating that adoption of blockchain by the Centre will help build enterprise interest, offer struggling startups with a market enabled by the government itself, and in the long run, create a market where companies end up with better understanding of blockchain’s purpose.
Pareen Lathia, founder of blockchain startup ValuesDAO and a promoter of blockchain ventures, said that the move is “positive”—both for the technology and associated startups.
“We’ll soon see multiple companies in an industry come together to use federated blockchains, as against public blockchains that are expensive to use due to their fees. In the short term, this is a good and definitive move. One big advantage of the framework is that the Centre has identified clear use cases, and companies can now innovate to create applications that target these sectors,” Lathia said.
In the long run, this can help develop a market for blockchain technology in the private space also, and the maturity and understanding of blockchain will improve,” he said.
A senior government official said that the framework’s purpose is to ensure that startups see a boost in business opportunities. “The idea is that startups and innovators can use the framework to see what applications can be built, and which areas can it be implemented. The way we see it, blockchain can be used right now in public-facing applications already, but we’ve to be careful to ensure that we’re using it right. For instance, a birth certificate only has a single source of issuance—here, it will be more about maintaining authenticity rather than decentralizing the source of the document,” he said.
Compared to the standard procedure where data generated by and belonging to public bodies is stored at one central place, blockchain involves decentralizing the data—where multiple copies of the same data are stored at different places. It also enables a document to be traced from source to its present form. For instance, a college degree stored on blockchain will show when and where it was issued, any party that has modified it at any point, and its current status.
Anurag Dua, partner at EY India, said that the move can bring enthusiasm to the blockchain industry at a time when enthusiasm has been low. “Any move is a good move for startups, especially if you think about the public sector applications that the Centre’s push can help create,” he said.
Dilip Chenoy, chairman of industry body Bharat Web3 Association (BWA), said that the adoption of blockchain by the Centre is a positive move towards web-3 technologies. “Such a move can also help bring down the cost of government systems going forward. Use cases of blockchain applications can be further expanded upon. For instance, at state governments, caste certificates are a ripe document to be integrated through a federated blockchain,” he added.
While Lathia, Dua and Chenoy agree that the framework will boost blockchain startups, it is still early days. A senior consultant that worked with Meity on identifying key opportunities of blockchain integration, said, “It is true that globally, blockchain adoption has remained slim, barring an initial buzz. To be sure, the technology is still to see mass-scale adoption, and the likes of IBM have pulled back on scalable federated blockchains simply because companies did not express interest in adopting the technology—barring certain use cases in banking and financial services.”
Lathia said that large industrial conglomerates are unlikely to adopt the technology at free will. “It’s important to understand that for big corporations, adopting decentralized and publicly auditable technologies can be detrimental towards their business operations. The idea is for firms to enable a decentralized framework that is presented to the overall industry—for instance, shipping and global supply chain logistics can benefit from it. But, it’s a long trek upward to reach mass-scale adoption for transparency of corporate operations through blockchain,” he said.
