Andhra Pradesh government took steps to use blockchain technology for land titling.
What is blockchain technology?
Blockchain technology uses disintermediation i.e the removal of intermediaries in exchange processes.
It enables people to transact in a peer-to-peer fashion based on the trust provided by blockchain.
What are the problems with the existing method?
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This is a problem because if this data is erroneously entered, lost or forged, the ledger will no longer represent the true ownership of assets.
The poor in India do own things, but they don’t have a way to represent their property and create capital.
Without representations their assets are “dead capital”.
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 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.
How can blockchain technology help?
The prosperity of Western nations can be traced to the security provided to property by the formal legal system.
This can be achieved with the help of blockchain technology.
Blockchain has the potential to link the asset, its size, location, use-restrictions, etc, to the owner unambiguously, and can all exchanges.
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.
