Maharashtra Govt Preparing Regulatory Sandbox For Blockchain Applications

The Maharashtra government is reportedly preparing a regulatory sandbox for testing blockchain applications across various platforms.News portal Daily News and Analysis reported that the government was planning to apply blockchain technology in areas such as supply chains, agricultural marketing, vehicle registration and document management.The state Information Technology department principal secretary SVR Srinivas told the news portal, “The state government is adopting a cutting edge technology to help enhance efficiency in the governance. Already the government has completed its first blockchain pilot in the fields of health, supply chain, documents and SSC certificates. A detailed report has been prepared to go in for extensive use of blockchain technology in various government departments. A regulatory sandbox, which will be a common framework for adopting blockchain technology, will be prepared in next five to six months.”Another government official, who wished to remain anonymous stated that blockchain information could not be tampered with or hacked.This is not the first time, the state government has been in the news for working with blockchain. In January last year, Devendra Fadnavis-led government had identified five sectors where blockchain technology can be integrated.Senior officers in the chief minister’s office, on the condition of anonymity had said, the areas for which a Proof Of Concept (POC) will be prepared with the help of private startups are the Public Distribution System (PDS), Rationing Department, school education, farm compensations, digital certification and land records.They had added that the POCs will be developed by the end of February 2018.At the time, Kaustubh Dhavse, Joint Secretary and Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, had said, “We’re inspired by the Andhra Pradesh government’s impressive implementation of blockchain technology, while we’ve been only thinking about it since early 2015. We’re looking at these four to five sectors for POCs.”Liked what you read? Join us on Telegram