FM BANKS ON BLOCKCHAIN, AI IN DIGITAL PUSH
MEASURES Finance minister proposes moves to crack down on cryptocurrencies, pushes for internet in rural areas
Finance minister Arun Jaitley, in his budget speech on Thursday, proposed a slew of measures to hasten India’s shift to a digital economy.
Among them, is use of blockchain technology to encourage digital payments and curb the use of cryptocurrencies, setting up a national programme to encourage artificial intelligence initiatives and providing easy internet access to villages.
The government is opposed to cryptocurrencies given that they can be a channel for money laundering and terrorist financing.
It plans to use blockchain technology, which is used for verifying and recording transactions, to curb their use. “Government does not consider cryptocurrency as legal; we will take all measures against its illegal use,” Jaitley said in his speech.
According to Jaitley, the move will also give a fillip to digital payments as blockchain technology will ensure greater security.
Currently, the use of cryptocurrencies is a violation of foreign-exchange rules. Nevertheless, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has a group studying whether digital currencies backed by global central banks can be used as legal tender.
The government has been pushing for a shift to a less-cash economy, especially after the cancellation of legal tender of high-value notes on 9 November 2016. Jaitley said the completion of Phase 1 of BharatNet, aimed at
NEWDELHI:
providing high-speed broadband in all panchayats, is a big step in digital India’s journey and it will now scale it up by providing 500,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in rural areas to provide easy internet access to 50 million Indians. For this, the government has allocated ₹10,000 crore under telecom infrastructure.
As many as 250,000 villages got optical fiber connectivity under the BharatNet program, wherein 100,000 gram panchayats have been connected with high-speed optic fibre network in the first phase of BharatNet, said Jaitley in his speech.
The government will work towards connecting another 150,000 villages under the BharatNet initiative.
BharatNet is being implemented by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to create network infrastructure for providing 100 Mbps broadband to all gram panchayats (approximately 250,000) in the country in a phased manner by the end of 2018.
The Union budget 2017-18 allocated ₹10,000 crore towards BharatNet to expedite the project. “NITI Aayog will establish a National Programme to direct our efforts in the area of artificial intelligence towards national development,” Jaitley said in his speech.