India’s Pune taps blockchain for property registration after year-long pilot

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The adoption of blockchain technology in India has etched another win following the disclosure of Pune’s property registration department to integrate the technology.

The city’s registry will rely on blockchain to prevent the duplication of online agreement documents to avoid fraud. With all land transactions recorded on distributed ledgers, officials claim that potential buyers and financial institutions will be able to access relevant information on properties.

“The blockchain technology will help resolve many issues, and it will be beneficial to citizens,” said Abhishek Deshmukh, a senior official at the registry.

According to Deshmukh, blockchain registration of property transactions has been in the works since 2022, recording multiple successes along the way. He disclosed that the agency is inching toward a major public rollout in the near future, pending the conclusion of several last-minute checks.

Gleaning from the pilot, the land registry will generate a unique string of numbers for uploaded documents to serve multiple functions. The first will allow for the identification of documents without stamps and signatures, while the second will assist banks in determining whether or not land documents have been tampered with.

The plan to introduce blockchain in land registrations appears to focus on the first sale units from developers without eliminating other forms of land transactions. Currently, industry players are recording a spike in online registrations of first-sale units in Pune.

“More developers would be encouraged to start the process from their offices, while citizens would be assured of the security of registered documents,” said Sunil Furde, Vice President of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (Credai).

In 2022, Maharashtra, India’s second most populous state, indicated a desire to pivot to blockchain for the registration of land transactions via public ledgers. The state’s Department of Registration and Stamps confirmed that several leading financial institutions would be brought on board to promote synergy across all industry layers.

Another major boost for India’s blockchain aspirations

India has not hidden its blockchain plans, with the government nursing ambitions to be the leading hub for the technology in all of Southeast Asia. Aside from land registries, several agencies are banking on blockchain to improve their processes, with New Delhi officials deploying it for forensic investigations.

The Indian private sector is not left out in the grand scheme of things, with several initiatives launched to educate the public on the benefits of blockchain adoption. A recent collaboration between 5ire and NITI Aayog to launch a blockchain module has been hailed as having the potential to “deepen the talent pool” for global and local firms.

Watch: Fast growing economy India jumps on the blockchain train