In a developmental move towards digitalisation, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) released the National Strategy on Blockchain for adopting technology in the government systems, on December 3. The national strategy on blockchain identifies as many as 44 potential areas of leveraging technology and lays out the broad contours of how it can be implemented across different sectors.
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For the implementation of the national strategy on blockchain, MeitY has suggested setting up a National Blockchain Framework (NBF) with three types of participants which include confident user of technology (application developers), provider or operator of technology (infrastructure and services, Blockchain as a service), and complete technology stack builder (IP creator). The Ministry has joined hands with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) for research and development of the national blockchain framework. Also, National Informatics Centre (NIC) and National Informatics Centre Services Inc. (NICSI) have been roped in for hosting the framework and offering blockchain as a service.
The strategy document reads, “Involvement of innovative startups and industry would bring in the agility. The institutional mechanism within MeitY and a collaborative framework with other ministries/ departments and states may be evolved.” Further, the document notes that a dedicated team would be constituted to handhold the implementers at various central/ state government applications. Also, the services offered by MeitY currently and other government organisations would also be onboarded onto the trusted digital platform.
The IT Ministry has proposed that the adoption of blockchain should encompass the assessment of the value proposition of blockchain technology, run pilots and prototypes, conduct assessments and accordingly adopt them for other applications.
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As reported by a national daily, the Ministry said, “The National Strategy to evolve a trusted digital platform for providing e-governance services using blockchain lays out overall vision and the development and implementation strategies for a National Blockchain Platform covering the technology stack, legal and regulatory framework, standards development, collaboration, human resource development and potential use cases. It is hoped that this strategy document would provide the necessary guidance and support for realizing the vision and creating a nationwide ecosystem for creating the National Blockchain Platform and development of relevant applications using this platform in various domains.”