Blockchain adoption in India takes a new turn. A breeze of India’s inhabitant plan on blockchain and distributed bill record suggests an executive bank digital banking (CBDC), a digital Indian rupee, and an inhabitant blockchain.

The National Institute for Smart Governance (NISG) is a non-profit open physique from the Govt of India. NISG recently publishes a daft on the country’s national DLT strategy. Though issued on 30th December 2019, the proposed draft first finds a place in “The ETI” on 28th January 2020.

Digital Indian Rupee Should be Issued on a National Blockchain of India

In the document, the NISG has proposed the Central Bank Digital Rupee (CBDR), a digital currency issued on a national permissioned blockchain. NISG “strongly recommended” that it’s time for issuing CBDR by India’s government and the country’s central bank.

The document reads:

As an alternative to Public Blockchains that operate with native cryptocurrency, like Ethereum, it strongly recommends that Government of India along with RBI come out with a CBDR. A Public Permissioned Blockchain should administer all transactions through a Turing Complete Virtual Machine. It again should allow decentralized applications to run on its platform.

Light Touch Regulatory Approach is Needed to Address an Existing Lack of Clarity

The NISG also outlined the existing legal challenges for the industry in India associated with a lack of regulatory clarity. And thus, Indian authorities should develop and promote regulatory clarity by publishing official statements instead of making public statements:

Public statements (Press/formal speeches) are helpful but are not official statements of application by the agency. If an agency intends to enforce its laws in new and innovative ways, it must first notify industry stakeholders of its intent to do so. And the way in which existing law applies.

Additionally, the company recommended adopting a light-touch regulatory approach at the initial states of the blockchain industry’s development in India. According to the NISG, existing regulation in India is too restrictive and doesn’t take into account the potential of emerging technologies.

India’s Central Bank (RBI) says It Hadn’t Banned Crypto

The news comes a few days after the RBI stands to challenge the petition. It says that India doesn’t ban virtual currencies. But the ban is on regulated entities from offering crypto assets in the country. As reported, the RBI banned Indian banks from providing crypto-related services in the country in 2018.

The RBI made its statement amid ongoing court hearings against the central bank at the Indian Supreme Court, as a consortium of crypto firms and experts attempts to have the ban repealed.