Role of Blockchain In Improving Transparency In E-Governance.

Before talking about?blockchain?and e-governance or?e-government, you must be familiarised with these terms.

Let’s start with the blockchain.

Blockchains are nothing but a decentralized public ledger system [decentralized database] that records all the transactional records openly [cryptographically] on the cloud [distributed IPFS Nodes] where no one can modify or delete a record.

And e-governance is a type of governance that uses the latest technologies to develop and enhance all areas like building smart infrastructures, electrical grids, transportation systems, etc. A government that uses and deploys the latest technologies in most areas and industries is known as e-government.

Now that you have a quick understanding of blockchains and e-governments let’s look at these three use cases by which blockchain technology can increase transparency in e-governments.

1 Maintaining property-related registers.

Blockchain technology can have another use in maintaining the asset registers. These registers may comprise the information regarding contracts, vehicles, or property.

The technology can aid the government by reducing the susceptibility to fraud in property transactions, assets, or land recordings

Blockchain does not only assures securing and transferring of data but also provides transparency across the method. Different countries, including Ghana, Georgia, Sweden, and the USA, have adopted blockchain-based solutions for keeping digital records of property and land registrations, making it a more sophisticated method for other countries.

2 Secure elections.

Transparency in an election is a real-world and consistent problem faced throughout the globe. Tampering with citizens’ votes is immoral and illegal, but sadly this has been overlooked throughout the past years, and it continues to happen globally. To ensure transparency in the elections and maintain the integrity of the citizens’ votes, blockchain-powered?secure voting?is introduced. Online voting powered by blockchain networks will not allow any type of data tampering by anyone. Voting is an important legitimate right of every individual living in a democratic country. It is thereby important to appropriately maintain the information of every individual.

Blockchain has made this task comparatively easier. Using the blockchain, the citizens can carry out digital voting similarly to initiating other secure transactions.

The individualized ballot process is currently only in use, but blockchain application to this field would be a boon. Not only it will make the process cost-effective but also would improve the efficiency of parliamentary elections.

3 Certification & Smart Contracts.

Digital certificates are important documents in the field of governance and academics. Thereby, the electronic certificates can be updated using blockchain to prevent data loss.

The blockchain system is highly applicable in maintaining smart contracts. This means agreements cause actions on their own under certain conditions. For instance, allowing a person to start a hired car only if he is currently on his leased payments.

Depending on the conditions, a smart contract can cut legal administrative costs. This could be applicable in cases including registration of vehicles, fraud-proof government welfare payments, individuals’ digital identities lacking any government-issued authorized document, etc.

The next steps for the government.

?Since most government firms have started conducting the trial with blockchain, the time is not so far to designate blockchain as “mainstream” to maintain data and information of any kind. Further, to create a robust ecosystem and ensure the successful implementation of blockchain technology, the government should take some of the necessary actions. Successful expedition of these actions can aid different sectors with ease of security maintenance.

The steps or actions that government needs to take are generally classified into two categories:

1) Industry enabling initiatives.

Building a roadmap: Since we are already aware of blockchain, adopting this system across all the industries would take nearly five to ten years from the current year. Thereby, building or preparing a roadmap is the primary action. Only the government would be able to define the use cases of blockchain in various fields

Promoting start-ups through the regulatory sandbox:?A regulatory sandbox is a platform that helps the government develop guidelines for upcoming technologies, protect consumer interest, and be abreast with the latest developments in the sector. Thereby, this has been used effectively by some regulators/ statutory bodies to test innovations and enable fintech firms to try out new and untested ideas.

Creating requisite infrastructure:?Government would also need to build an ecosystem of public and private partnerships to accelerate the overall adoption of blockchain in the state. This could be achieved by enabling a collaborative effort by creating incubation centers or conducting hackathons wherein the start-ups or authorized organizations can collaborate with various government departments and build systems on blockchain platforms.

Re-skilling the workforce:?The ITI training schemes, Teach India initiative, MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), and similar platforms can be used to develop new skill sets like blockchain developer, designer, technical architect, and strategist so that the workforce can be re-skilled to cope up with the changing paradigm.

2) Policies or frameworks to guide the boundaries of the blockchain ecosystem.

To gain complete clarity on regulatory norms, the government will need to define the legal framework related to the following aspects of blockchain:

–?Policies for recourse since blockchain transactions are immutable and tamper-proof

–?Validity of assets registered/stored in the blockchain

?–?Nature of transactions on blockchain with no single entity.

–?Validity of smart contracts used, and reports generated by blockchain