India Web 3.0 Summit: Maharashtra to pilot tokenisation of land assets using blockchain

Maharashtra is set to become the first Indian state to implement tokenisation of land and real estate assets using blockchain technology – a move aimed at unlocking underperforming real estate value, improving transparency, and creating new avenues for monetisation.

The state government is currently developing a sandbox pilot to test the entire process of asset tokenisation. “In the next few months, we are sandboxing this entire pilot for tokenisation. We are creating mock regulators, a mock exchange, and will ensure that the entire transaction cycle is simulated,” Kaustubh Dhavse, Chief Advisor (Investments & Strategy) to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, said at India Web 3.0 ‘Paving the road to a decentralised future’ event organised by Moneycontrol. “Once we are able to deliver that in six months, we will go full-fledged in implementation.”

Dhavse added that the government plans to demonstrate the pilot’s working model to regulators before scaling it across the state. “Blockchain is a perfect fit — it’s a system to help you verify trust — and governments are going to increasingly use it in various areas,” he noted.

Maharashtra’s roadmap

Maharashtra contributes around 15 percent to India’s national GDP and has set an ambitious goal of becoming a trillion-dollar economy by 2029. Dhavse said that infrastructure-led growth and technology adoption are central pillars of this goal.

“Right from 2014 till date, we have executed more than 39 billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects,” he said, adding that the state aims to complement its policy-led industrialisation with a technology-led revolution. “We want to become the first tokenised state using blockchain technology to create digital assets.”

He explained that the framework will allow real estate assets to exist as verifiable digital entities on blockchain, enabling property owners to monetise their holdings efficiently. “Typically, it takes anywhere between three to six months to process mortgage and title clearances. By putting this system on a blockchain-backed, tokenised network, we will create a unique identification for each real estate asset. That asset can then be used to access financial exposure to fund businesses,” Dhavse said.

Blockchain Adoption

The Maharashtra government has already adopted blockchain in areas such as evidence management systems to prevent tampering in judicial processes and ensure data integrity. Dhavse noted that blockchain is “now in full-fledged implementation in several applications across the board”, and that the technology has the potential to deliver much more beyond its traditional use cases.

“Regulation is essential and has to be an enabler. Policymakers are struggling to keep pace because every day brings a new set of challenges. But wherever we see scalable adoption that helps the government, we are pushing forward,” Dhavse said.

Punjab identifies 41 use cases for blockchain

While Maharashtra leads on land tokenisation, Punjab is also exploring ways to integrate blockchain and Web 3.0 technologies into governance.

“We have identified 41 use cases across departments such as education, agriculture, taxation, and tourism,” said Vishesh Sarangal, Special Secretary, Good Governance and Information Technology, Government of Punjab. “Out of approximately 846 citizen-centric services, 436 are already online. We are now working to build systems on top of these to optimise service delivery.”

Sarangal said that the state is currently in the early stages of creating a decentralised framework that could eventually support blockchain-based citizen services and agriculture solutions. “Web 3.0 has a long way to go. We need to create a more decentralised system, and regulation will definitely play a role. The technology itself is evolving,” he added.

Blockchain-enabled governance

Indian states are leveraging blockchain for governance, efficiency, and transparency. The long-term goal is to integrate blockchain into critical state functions, from property records and land monetisation to service delivery and data management, they said.

As Dhavse summed up, “Blockchain conversation must move beyond speculation to its real strength — what it can deliver. The technology can solve complex issues of transparency and verification, and early adoption will help governments deliver at scale.”