India to harness blockchain to bring more transparency and security
In recent months, several Indian states signaled their keen interest in introducing blockchain solutions in their operations. Last summer, the Indian state of Telangana revealed its intent to implement blockchain to mitigate the corruption and fraud commonly found in state and national institutions. Shortly before the announcement, the government of Telengana introduced blockchain solutions to its land registry and revenue departments in an attempt to clean up and curb pervasive bribery in the sector. Likewise, West Bengal will be using blockchain to streamline and simplify some of its administrative tasks, such as verifying legal identities and issuing birth certificate and other documents.
Trustlessness and immutability are at the very core of blockchain technology, which makes it ideally suited for ensuring data transparency and security. Consequently, it’s not a huge surprise that many of the world’s governments are considering incorporating blockchain solutions to streamline and increase efficiency of their operations.
Now, Manipur state government is following the other states’ footsteps. They have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a company called Lynked. World to explore various avenues of blockchain implementation in the state-run systems. The partners are currently looking at several use cases, among which are general administration, medical record-keeping, education system, and digital identity cards.
According to the plans hatched by the Manipur government representatives and the Lynked.World’s team, the new system will be used by citizens to apply for, and receive various government services from the convenience of their homes. State hospitals will be able to harness the new technology to digitize and protect their patients’ records, schedule doctor’s appointments, and issue hospital reports and certificates. State-run educational institutions will digitize the admissions process and keep grades and test results on the blockchain. Finally, the system will also be used for issuing digital identity cards for employees of state school and hospitals. All of these implementation scenarios are intended to ensure transparency and security, while offering the maximum ease of use for all involved.
Daria Generalova, co-founder of ICOBox, the company helping Lynked.World get their product to the market, was very enthusiastic about the new partnership: “It is no secret that many of the world’s governments are not always user-friendly and easy to navigate for citizens. Sometimes, existing systems can be frustrating even for governmental employees, the very people who run them. Administrative complexity can quickly turn into a sort of mess, and where there’s mess there’s vulnerability and potential security breaches. Now, with Lynked.World’s platform, many of these issues can be successfully addressed, bringing peace of mind for both the users and the administrators. I sincerely hope that other countries will promptly follow suit.”
Originally published at ambcrypto.com on October 27, 2018.
