Hyderabad: Representatives of standards’ organisation from across the globe, including Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) arrived here on Monday to hold discussions on a common standard for blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT).
The meeting was part of the International Standards Organisation’s (ISO) efforts to formulate international and universal standards in the field of blockchain and DLT. The earlier deliberations were held in Sydney, Tokyo, Moscow, London and Durban.
Speaking at the inaugural, Craig Dunn, chair of the ISO’s technical committee on blockchain, said, “The development of blockchain technologies is progressing at a rapid pace. However, there are some challenges. Codifying international standards to support security and privacy will be a huge step towards addressing these challenges.”
Dunn announced that the standards would be finalised and made known in about a year’s time
J.A. Chowdhary, the head of the Indian delegation from BIS, said, “It is being said that what the internet has done for the world, blockchain technologies will do likewise in agriculture, healthcare and land records. India is still in the nascent stage in this technology, though Telangana has been quite progressive and remains the only State where blockchain projects are in the implementation stage.”
He noted that across the country, 92 per cent of projects in blockchain and DLT were in the proof-of-concept stage.
“Only 8 per cent are in production stage and most of them are in the BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) segment,” he added.
IT secretary Jayesh Ranjan observed “Once the Union Government decided that DLTs could be allowed in the country, many State governments started initiating substantial blockchain projects. A large amount of the activity is being led by governments, as opposed to enterprises,” he said.
Ranjan noted that while most blockchain projects across the country were in the BFSI sector, Telangana had the distinction of implementing the technology in fields such as education, microfinance and land record management.
“We have three projects that are already in production or near production. They are in the fields of chit funds, education certificates and land record management,” he said.
Meanwhile, speaking on the sidelines of the event, Rama Devi Lanka, director of Emerging Technologies in the state government, said that its draft policy on blockchain, which was announced a few months ago, was almost finalised. She said the final policy would be announced within a few weeks.
“We prepared the original document after extensive consultation with experts. Hence, we have not had to make any major inputs to it,” she said.
