Maharashtra issues 100,000 plus verifiable diplomas on Polygon blockchain
The Maharashtra State Board of Skill Development (MSBSD) has issued nearly 100,000 verifiable digital diplomas anchored on the Polygon blockchain using the LegitDoc platform. “The project aims to digitize diplomas and transcripts that are issued annually to almost 100,000 students annually by MSBSD. This was done by creating manipulative digital diploma PDFs that are anchored on the Polygon Blockchain, Neil Martis, co-founder of LegitDoc told indianexpress.com.
The project was created by joint efforts of MSBSD and Maharashtra State Innovation Society (MSINS) enabled by LegitDoc. It is a blockchain-based system for issuing and verifying digital documents.
According to Martis, Blockchain-anchored diplomas provide the highest degree of data security, privacy, transparency and cost reductions compared to regular online certificates.
In particular, the board has not previously had the opportunity to issue electronic diplomas. This is the board’s first attempt to digitize the certificates. “However, instead of switching to traditional centralized digital methods, the board has made the decision to jump to direct chain-based digital certificates,” Martis said.
Diploma certificates can be verified on the Polygon-deployed Dapp on the board’s website. (Photo: LegitDoc)
Previously, MSBSD used to only issue a paper copy of mark sheet and diploma certificate. “…issuing paper certificates to students usually needed the involvement of more than 1,000 personnel across the chain of training institutes and departments, which usually takes about a month,” he noted.
He explains that the verification of the diplomas was also a manual process where a typical verification request had to be processed by almost 3 board members with a typical cycle time of 30 days. “Therefore, this project was taken up to automate the entire process by digitizing the issuance and verification of diplomas via the blockchain technology and eliminating all kinds of manual interventions and inefficiencies.”
Blockchain has already been adopted by Maharashtra for use cases like caste certificates and COVID certificates. “Given the requirement of MSBSD to digitize the credential system and its past success in implementing blockchain use cases, the Maharashtra government decided to issue blockchain-based diploma certificates,” said Mithun John, Joint CEO of MSINS.
Meanwhile, the government had previously piloted this solution on the Ethereum blockchain for historical student credentials. “However, due to scalability and high gas costs associated with Ethereum, the board has implemented its full scale on Polygon,” Martis added.
