Indian State Government Rolls Out Web3-Based Caste Certificates

One of India’s state governments, the Government of Maharashtra, has started issuing caste certificates using the Polygon blockchain to citizens living in Etapalli village, Gadchiroli district. This is part of the Digital India campaign.

Together with LegitDoc, a blockchain-based application, the Maharashtra state government is currently rolling out 65,000 caste certificates to aid the process of delivering governmental benefits and schemes.

In a recent interview, an Indian Administrative Officer (IAS), Shubham Gupta, revealed how the Indian government is always on the lookout to implement disruptive technologies that will enable more democratized Indian services.

Gupta further highlighted that similar e-governance initiatives have been implemented in jurisdictions such as Singapore and Malta, motivating the Indian government to embrace Web3 to aid them in their mandate of true democratization of citizen services.

Gupta added, “Web3 takes the concept of democratization to a whole new level, whereby, data/information can not only be made openly sharable but can be made openly unfalsifiable.

According to an article that was co-authored by the CEO of LegitDoc, Neil Martis, and Gupta, the goal of the issuance of caste certificates through Web3 platforms is to benefit 1.1 million economically-challenged residents in the Gadchiroli district. 70 percent of these residents represent the tribal population in the district.

Furthermore, the Web3-based certificates aim to combat the amount of forgery by bad actors who falsely claim government-provided benefits for the underprivileged. Martis and Gupta also spoke of the important role that Web3 protocols will play in protecting the general public against both financial and non-financial deplatforming.