The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched Vishvasya, blockchain technology stack to offer blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) with a geographically distributed infrastructure designed to support various permissioned blockchain based applications. MeitY has also unveiled NBFLite, lightweight blockchain platform, Praamaanik, an innovative blockchain-enabled solution for verifying mobile app origin and national blockchain portal.
MeitY, with the vision to create trusted digital platforms, initiated national blockchain framework (NBF) for promoting research and application development, facilitating state-of-the-art, transparent, secure and trusted digital service delivery to citizens.
NBF technology stack is architected with distributed infrastructure, core framework functionality, smart contracts and application programming interface (API) gateway, security, privacy and interoperability and applications development offering BaaS. NBF currently supports two permissioned blockchain platforms and is extensible. The technology stack is hosted on geographically distributed infrastructure at NIC data centres that is in Bhubaneswar, Pune, and Hyderabad.
Further, NBFLite, a blockchain sandbox platform, is developed especially for startups/academia for rapid prototyping of applications, carrying out research and capacity building. These technologies have been developed by collaborating efforts of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), National Informatics Centre (NIC), Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad and Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS), Chennai under MeitY support.
During the launch, S Krishnan, secretary, MeitY expressed that as part of the efforts of government for providing trusted digital service delivery, NBF would play an important role in enabling security, trust and transparency for various citizen centric applications. He also highlighted that the stakeholders should aim to position India as a global leader in blockchain technology and proliferate the developed solutions for global adoption, leveraging it to drive economic growth, social development, and digital empowerment.
Meanwhile, Bhuvnesh Kumar, additional secretary, MeitY, highlighted that the blockchain technology holds immense potential for transforming governance in India by making public services more transparent, efficient, and accountable. He stressed the need for scaling the applications on NBF across various states and departments and suggested to explore onboarding new applications/ platforms/ innovative components on NBF stack.
Furthermore, Sunita Verma, scientist G and group coordinator, research and development in electronics and IT, MeitY, mentioned that the objective of initiating NBF is to develop an extensible framework with blockchain technology stack on distributed infrastructure towards addressing the challenges such as need for skilled manpower towards building blockchain based applications, vendor lock-in and research challenges related to security, interoperability, performance and other aspects.
Moreover, Magesh E, director general, C-DAC, mentioned that NBF is a consortium mode effort towards addressing research challenges and harnessing the benefits of the technology to develop applications in association with government organisations. A number of patents and research publications are generated as part of this initiative. Whereas, P R Lakshmi Eswari, centre head, C-DAC Hyderabad, briefed about the various technical features of the NBF and explained about Praamaanik.
