Blockchain Technology: The Apple of India's Eye The country, while remaining cautious on the crypto topic, has embraced blockchain with contrasting enthusiasm

The global Blockchain Market size was reckoned to be approximately USD 7.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to generate revenue of over USD 94.0 billion by the end of 2027, at a CAGR of about 66.2 per cent during this period. India ranks among the top five countries when it comes to blockchain adoption in 2023.

The country, while remaining cautious on the crypto topic, has embraced blockchain with contrasting enthusiasm. According to a report by Hashed Emergent, Public-private partnerships, large & mid-sized companies, and startups in India have displayed an inclination towards embracing blockchain technology to enhance transparency and drive innovation.

Notably, the Government of India and more than 50 per cent of the Indian State governments are actively exploring blockchain technology for various use cases. "Technology today is becoming a far bigger game changer than what we had imagined; I'd say a decade ago, even five years. At that point in time, it was seen as a luxury. The big ones, and top 500 companies; all had their tech verticals or sourced tech from other vendors. But for others, it was not really seen as something which is affordable or accessible," shares Shri Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary of the Industries & Commerce (I&C) and Information Technology (IT) Departments of the Telangana government.

According to Deloitte's 2018 global blockchain survey, 53 per cent of enterprises were most likely to list use cases on supply chain. Large and Mid-size institutions such as Infosys, Jio Financial Services, Flipkart, Shemaroo, and the International Cricket Council (ICC) have benefited from the technology adoption. Based on the trends and observations, banking & financial services players, retail & e-commerce players, and government are the top three major end users of blockchain.

Dr Karthik Anantharaman, Vice President – International, Group Oncology & International, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd feels that there are around five major applications where blockchain has been extremely helpful and relevant in the healthcare space. The areas are- patient data and patient data management; clinical trials; pharmaceutical supply chains; telemedicine; and health data exchange.

"Just before Covid, if you were to look at the baseline of number of teleconsultations or video consultations that we used to do as healthcare organization of connecting a doctor with a patient using technology and compare that baseline towards what we did during Covid and now post-Covid, we've seen about a 10 to 12 x growth in the volume of consultations and the volume of telemedicine consultations and transactions that we do," he shares. He notes that there has been tremendous growth in the number of pharmaceuticals transactions and lab investigation transactions.

"So there has to be a technology that supports the authenticity of transactions, authenticity of data within this entire universe of what we do as digital health transactions. So that is where I think blockchain comes in and is extremely handy and it's been very helpful for us there," he adds.

When it comes to blockchain app development companies in India, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS); Infosys; L&T Infotech; IBM; and Capgemini are leading the race. So, how has blockchain adoption further helped a tech entity like LTIMindtree? From a data transaction standpoint, Ravi Chandrasekaran, Chief Technologist and Senior Director Utilities Business Unit, LTIMindtree identifies three areas- blockchain as a collaboration and data registry; data in terms of information exchange; real-time trade exchanges; and advanced infrastructure. "When you do business transformation what all changes, you can bring in specifically compliance regulations related, policy related or revenue regulation. You can do blockchain in that space, but within the big enterprises with the set of partners," he shares.

"Everyone says that it is that they know the best way of reaching up to the customer, but the truth of the matter is the end customer actually knows what they want, and giving that power to them is what will drive higher innovations and faster basically the growth of the country," shares Abhijat Sinha, Founder & CEO, decimal.

"So basically it is a different way of looking at data. Instead of holding the data, controlling the data, it is all about cooperation," Sinha adds.

"Many promising Indian startups are shifting their base to Dubai or Singapore because the regulatory environment in India does not continue. They're getting pushed out. And then we learned about it. Some of the states, Telangana as a state, decided that we'll take control of the situation and two years ago we introduced a regulatory sandbox. We need to bring regulators, startups, and the law. As the government, we need to kind of stitch everything together," Ranjan concludes.