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Blockchain-based Government Services

that are crystal clear, strong, tamper-proof and proficient. Various journals and

papers are trying to explore and analyse this technology and its implications for

the growth of smart cities when used in fields like governance, logistics and finan­

cial transactions, where citizens have low trust in government yet high expectations

(Mic & Nãsulea, 2018).

8.2  GLOBAL BLOCKCHAIN ADOPTION

Many countries recognize the potential use of blockchain in the public sector and are

investing and experimenting with citizen-centric services to increase the quality of

life with effective service delivery. One such effective case of blockchain adoption

and implementation for government services can be seen in Estonia. Estonia is called

“the most developed society in the world”. It has built an efficient, safe and transpar­

ent system that saves time and money. Estonia has developed a blockchain solution

for a number of government services called the keyless signature interface (KSI).

Estonia uses blockchain technology to verify the integrity of government registers

and details such as health care records, asset records, business records, sequence

records, digital court systems, etc.

e-Estonia has saved more than 1400 years of working time each year and contrib­

utes 2% GDP annually for its digitized public services. Its adoption of blockchain

technology can be seen as an outline for achieving a possible global implementation

of blockchain (e-estonia, 2009).

There are various countries in the league of experimenting with this technology,

like China, Singapore and Dubai, to develop their smart cities. Dubai aims to be a

fully blockchain-powered country using three strategic pillars of Industry Creation,

Government Efficiency and International Leadership. It wants to create database

records that cannot be tampered with and wants all bill payments, licence renewals,

real estate proceedings and visa applications to be transacted digitally using block­

chain. A cryptocurrency called “emCash” was launched for transactions on govern­

ment and non-government services (Deloitte, 2018; XISCHE, 2018).

The city of Moscow started an online voting system through a blockchain plat­

form called Active Citizen (AC), where the public can vote on matters of city devel­

opment such as new playgrounds or parks, sports complexes, additional bus routes,

etc. without disclosing their identity or personal data, resulting in increased confi­

dence and transparency in public services among citizens.

The Republic of Georgia has developed a blockchain registration of land to

ensure transparent patents within the National Agency of the Public Registry

(NAPR) and the people, thus reducing corruption (United for Smart Sustainable

Cities, 2020).

8.3  BLOCKCHAIN ADOPTION IN INDIA

Technology has infiltrated every aspect of people’s lives and work across vari­

ous institutions, sectors and industries, making it simpler and connected. Thus,

it increases people’s expectations of the ecosystem of public services. The Indian

government has continuously rolled out schemes and programmes with the vision