CRUBN, an IIT-Kanpur incubated company which provides state-of-the-art blockchain solutions for government and business entities across the globe, has teamed up with Centre for Smart Governance, a premier software development agency of the Government of Karnataka. This alliance has been formed to develop a permissioned blockchain network as a decentralized trust and efficiency layer for all eGovernment Procurement (e-GP) systems across the country.

E-Government Procurement (e-GP) systems cater to the procurement and tendering requirements of various government departments and organizations. Though e-GP systems have contributed to enhanced efficiency and transparency in government procurement, there is potential for further advancement of the existing systems. This partnership aims to ease the hassle of the existing systems by making the more than 50 operational e-GP systems across the country interoperable, which, up till now, work in silos.

Professor Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur, said, “We have a dynamic space within the Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC) that helps in breeding innovations. All the incubatees of the SIIC have been contributing to the country in various means, and in time of crucial need. I am delighted for the team of CRUBN, who have come forward to help in developing a key blockchain network across the country that would enrich the existing e-governance systems. This will help IIT Kanpur in realising the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat in state-of-the-art technologies and making India a technology super power.”

This blockchain network will be used for validating the claims of suppliers along with their identities. The proposed system will connect all the e-GP systems through a network, which will help retrieve and validate relevant supplier data between various e-GP Systems that are in use within India. The proposed system will also digitize Bank guarantees by powering them using the trust-based automation of Blockchain. When fully operational, this system will be a pan-India system that would reduce the time and cost associated with public procurements made using e-GP systems.

Key highlights of the project:

• This blockchain network will be governed by the terms and conditions decided by the consortium of the e-GP Systems across the country.
• The blockchain system can be used as the national de-duplicated supplier datastore.
• Any e-GP system can depend upon the trust that Blockchain guarantees to authenticate supplier details. This will potentially save enormous costs associated with tender processing and make the process simpler and efficient.
• Bank guarantees will also be pushed to this system in a tokenized & privacy-preserving manner to maintain integrity.
• Tokenization of Bank guarantees would mean that they will become a more acceptable instrument of transaction than they are now.

With its vision to empower India in technological self-reliance, IIT Kanpur has been undertaking various projects and initiatives. CRUBN was incubated at IIT Kanpur, for phase-III of National Blockchain Project, funded by the National Security Council Secretariat and envisioned to build e-governance solutions using blockchain technology. IIT Kanpur’s C3i Center funded by the SERB (Science and Engineering Research Board) is India’s first cyber security research and education centre in the field of cybersecurity of critical infrastructure. Further, the C3i Hub (The Technology Innovation Hub funded by DST’s National Mission on Cyber Physical systems) established at IIT Kanpur helps in empowering the research, education, start-up ecosystem, and industrial collaboration in the field of cyber security.