Ushering a Trust-based Benefit Delivery Ecosystem in Rural India Powered by Blockchain

Abstract

In developing countries across the globe, the resources are scarce with governments, but the demand from citizens are enormous, resources are often so thinly spread by the government that they rarely manage to have the socio-economic impact they are intended to bring. To elucidate this point, we took the case of India, where multiple beneficiary-oriented programmes are implemented in rural areas of the country targeting about a billion people. Billions of dollars are spent by both Federal Governments and State Governments in undertaking similar exercises for outreach, identification, and enrolment of beneficiaries under various welfare programmes that provide cash transfers, subsidies and other social services to the disadvantaged youth, women and aged in society. Some countries have also undertaken household surveys to identify gaps in demand and the supply of government services. However, limited success has been achieved in adopting such static database as the single source of truth for the identification of deprived households across all government programmes, due to its inherent potential for creating errors of inclusion and exclusion. Another major deterrent in the adoption of such a singular identity associated with socio-economic attribute is the concentration of information and associated risks. Through this paper, an attempt is being made to bridge this ‘trust deficit’ in governance through the application of distributed ledger technology for social inclusion. We further discuss how government is better placed than the private sector to tap the full potential of Blockchain technology as several public organizations working in the same sector are often controlled by the same parent government department. A mandate from government can give the necessary thrust to reap the benefits of this ecosystem-centric technology. At the last, feasibility, approaches and challenges are analyzed. The results from the adoption of this approach to governance can transform the entire service delivery ecosystem.