Maharashtra govt ties up with Polygon based platform LegitDoc to issue caste certificates

The Maharashtra state government has started issuing caste certificates to residents in Etapalli village, Gadchiroli district using LegitDoc, a public blockchain platform that allows these certificates to be verified instantly.

The government has so far issued 65,000 caste certificates to the residents of Etapalli village, using the Polygon blockchain-based platform.

Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon Blockchain, took to Twitter to announce that 65,000 certifications have been issued using the Polygon blockchain.

Neil Martis, CEO of LegitDoc in a LinkedIn post expressed:

"The Source of truth for citizen records will no longer be the dusty files racked in Government offices or the administrator governed data on cloud repositories. Instead, it’ll be the undeniable, cryptographically verifiable data proofs stored on-chain."

Residents of Etapalli village will benefit from caste certificates generated on a Polygon-based blockchain since the village has a larger tribal population that requires caste certificates in order to receive government-funded schemes and subsidies.

As a part of this initiative, the proposed blockchain system generates a unique QR code consisting of blockchain proofs that are encoded on each caste certificate. It cryptographically commits selective details of every caste certificate fetched from the 'MahaOnline' (state government portal) on the Polygon POS blockchain.

Later citizens will receive these certificates through common service centres (CSC), which are already operational in all villages. Following that, using the open verification mechanism available on the government website, residents can verify the legitimacy of a certificate with a single click.

This Implementation benefits the state administration in combating forgeries and identifying the appropriate beneficiaries for the selected government schemes. Earlier, to combat document counterfeiting, the Maharashtra government built an Ethereum-based credentialing system to provide tamper-proof diploma certificates.

Public blockchains, provide reliability, security, open access, and transparency, and countries including Singapore, Malta, Estonia, Switzerland, Japan have switched to Web3-based E-governance stacks (public blockchains). Many countries are adopting web3 to provide citizen services including digital warrants, educational credentials, and health certificates.