Andhra Pradesh Intends to Create all Digital Assets Via Blockchain by 2019-end Andhrapreneurship will focus on Fintech and Blockchain to race ahead

Amid changing dynamics of entrepreneurship and industrial promotion, India is witnessing a big shift in the way state governments approach growth. Growth is no more limited to a certain section of the state. Nor is it reserved for a certain class. Startups have been disruptors and technology has been their enablers.

Among Indian states that are increasingly adopting start-ups as well as technology, the Andhra Pradesh government counts itself leaders in two areas - Fintech and Blockchain.

In a conversation with Entrepreneur India, the current IT Advisor to the Government of Andhra Pradesh, JA Chowdary spoke about how the government will use technology to leapfrog in the race of most startup-friendly states.

Focus Areas – Fintech & Blockchain

On Fintech, Chowdhary said that the focused attempt by the Andhra Pradesh government has been to attract all the global Fintech companies to the Fintech Valley Vishakhapatnam, Vizag.

With respect to Blockchain, Chowdhary made it clear that AP wanted to be number one as far as the technology is concerned.

As Blockchain emerges, it is likely to be all pervasive whether it is in healthcare, hospital or the government.

"Fortunately, Andhra Pradesh has taken the lead in implementing Blockchain. Our positioning at this point of time is, we want to make Blockchain technology point of view in the Vishakhapatnam as the world's number one destination. So that the entire ecosystem we are building, creating the man power, bring the start-up companies and big companies, also creating the opportunities for them to have some business," Chowdary said.

Among the first two departments to get Blockchain technology in AP will be education and road transport authority. The government's intent is by the end of 2019, all the digital assets created in Andhra Pradesh will do Blockchain and that is likely to give enormous opportunities for the world Blockchain start-up companies to set base in AP.

Another use case of Blockchain technology that the AP government boasts of having adopted includes property ledgering where majority of the legal disputes tend to happen.

"We want to address to Amravati's land allocation appropriately so that ultimately it will be beneficial to the government as well as the citizens of the country by providing transparency and avoiding all issues relating to legal documents," Chowdary said.

Getting Global Companies to Andhra Pradesh

Chowdhary claims that the AP government has already done several pilots involving the global blockchain technology companies.

Among initiatives that the state has undertaken to promote Blockchain include student hackathons, a mandate to get all government departments under Blockchain by end of 2019 and setting up Blockchain academies.

However, Chowdary steered clear of the government's involvement with cryptocurrency that has picked up interest of traders worldwide.

"Anything which is speculative in nature, government will not encourage. The reason is we are not encouraging any cryptocurrency or Bitcoin because they are speculate in nature, so those are the things government wants to get into," Chowdary said.

The Special Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister was speaking at the StartAP Awards that counts itself among the largest startup ecosystem enabler in the state of AP.