India’s second-most populous state issues 100,000 diplomas on Polygon blockchain

Through the LegitDoc platform, the Maharashtra State Board of Skill Development (MSBSD) has distributed approximately 100,000 verified digital certificates anchored on the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain. 

LegitDoc catalyzed the collaboration between the MSBSD and the Maharashtra State Innovation Society (MSINS), which resulted in the creation of the initiative, which is a method for issuing and certifying digital documents based on blockchain technology, as per a report by indianexpress.com on August 4.

“The project aims to digitise diplomas and transcripts that are annually issued to nearly 100,000 students annually by MSBSD. This was done by creating tamper-evident digital diploma PDFs that are anchored on Polygon Blockchain,” Neil Martis, co-founder of LegitDoc stated.

According to Martis, when compared to standard online certificates, Blockchain-based degrees provide the greatest degree of data protection, privacy, openness, and cost savings.

First effort to digitize certificates

It is important to note that the board could not offer online degrees in the past. The board is making its first effort to digitize the certificates with this project. 

“However, instead of switching to traditional centralized digital methods, the board has made the decision to leap-frog to directly on-chain-based digital certificates,” said Martis.

Previously, MSBSD only issued paper mark sheets and diploma certificates. Giving hardcopy certificates to students often requires the participation of over a thousand workers throughout its network of training institutions and departments and takes around a month.

Martis notes that verifying degrees was also a laborious procedure, requiring almost three board officials and a median cycle time of 30 days to handle a standard verification request.

“Hence, this project was taken up to automate the entire process by digitising diploma issuance and verification via the blockchain technology and eliminate all kinds of manual interventions and inefficiencies.”

Maharashtra used blockchain tech for COVID certifcates

The Indian state of Maharashtra has previously used blockchain technology for a variety of purposes, including the issuance of caste certificates and COVID certifications and given its success in implementing blockchain use cases, the Maharashtra government decided to issue blockchain-based diploma certificates.

Interestingly, the government had already conducted a pilot project using the Ethereum blockchain to test out this option for past student credentials but due t o scalability and the high gas cost connected with Ethereum “the board has made its full-scale deployment on Polygon.”

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