Andhra Pradesh is currently digitalizing and documenting agricultural land on the blockchain network. While the decentralized distributed ledger system is a significant improvement from Andhra Pradesh’s older databases, Quartz India has noted that private blockchain systems remain susceptible to corruption. Unfortunately, advanced technology cannot absolve complete responsibility from users and administrators. It becomes increasingly difficult when there is a high level of distrust and lack of transparency in India’s land registration history.
According to Quartz India, Andhra Pradesh is acquiring 217 square kilometers of agricultural farmland to build Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh’s capital city. The process of documenting land for the new capital is being done on the blockchain. In theory, the blockchain provides transparency across all parties involved. Any changes to the system can, therefore, be tracked.
So far, over 24,000 farmers from 22 villages in Guntur have participated in the blockchain land registration and barter process. The government hopes that the use of blockchain technology will result in a decline in instances of property fraud. Some farmers have embraced the new process, like Tharigopula Samasiva Rao. Rao worked out an agreement with the state government of Andhra Pradesh for his land and stated about the blockchain system,
“Now we don’t have the headache of hiring a document writer to prepare our papers…The records are generated and sent automatically to the registration office. With this new technology, we knew there would be full security, no double registrations, no duplicates.”
To store land ownership and rights, the Andhra Pradesh government worked with Zebi, a blockchain-based provider that uses cryptography to securely store the information. The team moved 83,000 records to the blockchain database by March 2018. Prior to the new blockchain system, anyone with access to the older database could modify the data, and hackers or those with inside access had programs to cover their tracks. According to Zebi co-founder, Babu Munagala, “All of those dangers go away (with blockchain).”
