Maha govt eyes making use of blockchain technology

The Maharashtra government is toying with the idea of using blockchain technology for data security in various departments like revenue, police, land records and in maintaining database about student scholarships and farm loan waiver scheme.
The blockchain technology, which is still at a nascent stage, allows storage and distribution of information in the digital format.
Principal Secretary Information Technology, S V R Srinivasan said that the new technology platform can help the government in data security in various departments.
He was speaking to reporters while announcing the first Maharashtra Technology Summit to be held on January 17 in collaboration with Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, but Bengaluru and Hyderabad have taken the lead in software technology, he said that the government now wants to make Mumbai the 'Fintech' capital of the country.
"The government will soon come out with its Financial Technology policy. The use of the new technology will help in ensuring greater trust, transparency and efficiency in the governance," Srinivasan said.

"The technology can be used in departments like revenue to store land records, in police to store FIRs and records of criminals, land extracts and in other sectors like health, education.
Giving details of the blockchain technology, a senior official from the state secretariat said that in this system, information stored and distributed cannot be copied, hacked or tampered with.

"It is now becoming the backbone of a new type of internet," he added.
The official said that the technology is an incorruptible digital ledger for economic transactions that can be programmed to record financial transactions and anything of value.
The information stored on blockchain is continually reconciled and it is not stored on any single central server.
"That makes hacking of the database much difficult as tampering the data base means hacking into a chain of data base, which is a difficult thing to do," the official said.