Lok Sabha Question No. 4407 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-03-30
Subject: Blockchain Engineering
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Ravneet Singh, Vijayakumar (alias) Vijay Vasanth

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED DIARY NO. 4407

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 30.03.2022

## BLOCKCHAIN ENGINEERING

## 4407.   SHRI RAVNEET SINGH BITTU: SHRI VIJAYAKUMAR (ALIAS) VIJAY VASANTH:

Will the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology be pleased to state:

- (a)  whether  the  Government  is  aware  that  there  is  a  huge  demand  of  blockchain  engineering talent in the country;
- (b) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor;
- (c)  whether the Government is taking any steps to promote blockchain engineering which can lead to generation of a large number of jobs in the country;
- (d) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor; and
- (e)  the  details  of  the  training  programmes  and  dedicated  programmes  in  the  blockchain technology being conducted and likely to be conducted by the Government in future?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR)

- (a):  Yes,  Sir.  Government  of  India  has  issued  National  Strategy  on  Blockchain  in  Dec  2021, which  focuses  on  R&D,  innovation,  Technology  which  in  turn  creates  Blockchain  talent  and capabilities in Tech workforce. The strategy document is available at https://www.meity.gov.in/content/national-strategy-on-Blockchain.
- (b): The Government has facilitated rollout of Blockchain based courses in the educational/academic and Research & Development institutions including engineering & higher education institutions in the country as given below:
-  Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY)& NASSCOM has jointly initiated a programme titled FutureSkills  PRIME (www.futureskillsprime.in),  a  B2C  framework  for  re-skilling/  upskilling of IT professionals in 10 Emerging area includingBlockchain, Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence.
-  Government  has  initiated 'Visvesvaraya  PhD  Scheme' with  an  objective  to  enhance  the number of PhDs in Electronics System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) and IT/IT Enabled

Services  (IT/ITES)  sectors  including  AI  in  the  country.  The  research  areas  under  the scheme inter-alia include Blockchain Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Image Processing, etc. Presently, 908 Full time & 308 part-time PhD candidates are enrolled under the scheme at 97 academic institutions across the country.

-  IITs  /  IIITs  and  government  &  private  universities  are  offering  course  curriculum  in  the Blockchain.
-  Indian  Institute  of  Information  Technology  &  Management  (IIITM-K)  has  started  Kerala Block Chain  Academy,  a unique initiative  for  offering  Blockchain  training,  research,  and consultancy in multiple domains.
-  The Academic {Blockchain} Documents (ABCD) has been implemented by CBSE, which presently hosts 97.6 lakh Class X & Class XII certificates on the chain for academic session 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21.
-  MeitY has also established Centres of Excellence in Blockchain to facilitate start-ups and entrepreneurs working on Blockchain based solutions.

(c)  and  (d):  Yes,  Sir.  Government  is  taking  several  steps  to  promote  Blockchain  through  the courses offered by various institutions leading to generation of many jobs in the country.

(e):  The training programmes in Emerging Technologies including Blockchain are as below:

-  The adoption of Blockchain based solutions are promoted using Digital India Dialogues, a series of 100 knowledge sharing sessions on emerging technologies.
-  Under  the  progarmme  so  far,  around  3.46  lakh  candidates  have  enrolled  for  various courses,  out  of  which,  around  1.2  Lakh  candidates  have  completed  their  course.  In addition,  524  Trainers  and  4292  Government  Officials  have  been  trained  on  these technologies by NIELIT/C-DAC  Resource  Centres,  out of  which,186  Government Officials  and  26  Trainers  have  been  certified  under  the  Blockchain  technology.  Further, around 1.27 lakh unique learners have collectively earned 8.89 lakh badges in recognition of having completed bite-sized digital fluency content, out of which, around 2100 unique learners have completed around 13,500 badges under Blockchain technology.
-  C-DAC  is  also  offering  a  skill  based  online  course  on  Blockchain  Technology  & Application  Development  through  'C-DAC's  HARmonized  Industry  skilling  program through  Online  Training  -  CHARIOT'.  (https://vikaspedia.in/events/c-dac-s-harmonizedindustry-skilling-program-through-online-training).
-  Blockchain courses are offered at SWAYAM Portal of Ministry of Education.

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