How Blockchain technology will help to address India’s land governance woes - Analyse.
Refer - Live mint
IAS Parliament 7 years
KEY POINTS
Issues
· Record keeping – At present, land ownership data is stored with the government in centralized ledgers.
· This means that the data can be accessed and modified only by the government.
· This is a problem because if this data is erroneously entered, lost or forged, the ledger will no longer represent the true ownership of assets.
· Reliable information – At present, trading an asset requires an enormous effort just to determine the basics of the transaction like the real owner, his right to transfer, reliability of claimants.
· That is why even the sale or lease of a house may involve cumbersome procedures.
· Lawsuits – Also, more than 66% of the civil cases pending in courts are related to land or property.
· Not only is the judiciary overburdened, the poor litigants are also losing Rs.1,300 on average per day of court hearing.
Block Chain Technology
· A digital log that maintains the land records such as its size, location, use-restrictions, etc is called Block-chain.
· It is as same as the procedure followed in Bitcoin technology.
· Blockchain technology is at the forefront of a technological shift called disintermediation (i.e.) the removal of intermediaries in exchange processes that enable people to transact in a peer-to-peer fashion based on the trust provided by block chain.
Application of Block chain
· Blockchain has the potential to link the asset, its size, location, use-restrictions, etc, to the owner unambiguously, and can trace all exchanges further.
· It allows the government to maintain a public ledger of asset-ownership in a distributed fashion.
· The data is stored on a network of devices and there is no central point of failure.
· It ensures trust by being transparent as it is visible for everyone to verify.
· At the same time, it ensures privacy for the owner by ensuring that the ownership of the asset only changes hands after authorization.
· Also people who use goods and services and don’t pay for them will be identified and charged interest penalties.
· Contract violations can be traced.
· Legal infractions can be more easily prosecuted.
Challenges
· Recognizing the present owners of the lands is a huge task in itself.
· Tribal farmers in Gujarat use GPS technology to mark their lands on government maps and secure their property.
· Something similar must be done for the vast swathes of India’s countryside to transform the poor assets in to capital.
