Blockchain technology for India
Blockchain challenges the global banking system, provides a platform for applications that are completely decentralised, contracts that don’t require any third-party to establish trust, and much more.
India is a big nation and has some quite unique problems that can be solved by blockchain technology. I cover some of them in this post.
- Paper Leaks
In last few years, leaking of papers for competitive exams has become a very serious issue. Recently, Staff Selection Commission’s (SCC) exam’s papers got leaked and CBI probe was issued into it: https://goo.gl/R1oQEr.
India is a large country and distribution of question papers securely is a big issue. There are many intermediate parties that are easily corruptible and give access to papers for a hefty sum of money.
How can blockchain help?
With help of platforms like Ethereum, we can create smart contracts that run a specific code at a particular time. We can develop contracts that keep papers locked (or encrypted) till the time of start of the exam and unlock them only after that. Now, no one can access the papers before exam starts, no matter what. Since more and more exams are now being conducted online, this is easily achievable.
- UIDAI and Security of Citizen’s Data
Aadhar is a unique number given to residents of India, just like Social Security Number. A lot of personal and sensitive data is collected in Aadhar Scheme and is managed by a central authority UIDAI. This raises many issues:
- It gives hackers a single point of attack to steal sensitive data.
- Responsibility to protect data is with single authority — UIDAI.
- UIDAI gets a lot of power managing such large and sensitive data.
Recently there have been reports of hacking of thousands of Aadhar cards.
How can blockchain help?
If the indian government is genuinely concerned about citizen’s data, they can encrypt it using citizen’s own biometrics and decentralise the database. It sounds scary at first, but encryption is a proven technology and decentralization removes any possibilities of loopholes or backdoors.
We can have smart contracts the reveal citizen’s sensitive information only by citizen’s consent. In addition to this, we can also generate temporary unique identification numbers and keep original identification number encrypted. Government can also enable querying of database without revealing identity of person. This can help then track transfer of benefits, tax evasion, etc.
- Using smart contracts to issue LoUs
If you are from India, you most certainly have heard about Nirav Modi’s recent ₹12,000 Crore scam. What basically this guy did was that he obtained fraudulent Letters of Understanding from Punjab National Bank and was able to avail buyer’s credit in overseas branches of Indian banks. And, how did this all happen? Because, authority of issuing LoUs was in hands of some junior level branch official.
How can blockchain help?
This is what happens when you put trust into humans. Humans are inherently corruptible. This is why, blockchain is very important, because it does not require any middle party to establish trust. We can use smart contracts to issue LoUs. This will have many advantages:
It will not require trust to be established on a single or a handful of persons.
Decentralisation, even on a private blockchain, will ensure concerned authorities like RBI, finance ministry are kept in loop about LoUs and they can take actions on time.
Conclusion
Blockchain technology is still in its early phases. It can solve some of the biggest problems that are faced by our country. What is required is focus on this technology and finding out problems that can be solved by it. World progresses very fast and some technologies change course of human development. We need to realize that blockchain can be one of them.