Moving Beyond Paperwork:Blockchain in Public Sector

The purpose of this research paper is to focus on the granular assessment at use-case level of the opportunities of blockchain in the public sector. Blockchain is a secure, shared, distributed ledger that can redefine the nature of transactions and transform global administration and economy. As governmental documentation requires extensive paperwork that involve intermediaries and centralized ledgers, the system remains untrustworthy, tedious, expensive and inefficient. Moreover, a significant challenge for the public sector involves the lack of effective traceability and transparency. The establishment of a trusted identity becomes a problem due to forgery, expensive background checks and enormous paperwork necessary during verification. The paper also aims on how governments or public sectors can utilize blockchain - a distributed and secured ledger, which can improve security, data transparency, documentation and rate of inspection. Blockchain can prove to be a technological platform for various public sector use-cases like - tax collection and reporting, identity management, digital currency, public procurement, voting, land registry, government records etc. In each of the mentioned cases, blockchain has the potential to create value regardless of the type of record keeping or transaction involved which will help governments and public sectors to build trust and transparency and thus changing the way to deliver for the citizens.