Kevin Helms
As an Austrian economics student, Kevin discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects, and the intersection of economics and cryptography.
The Indian government has not yet introduced a cryptocurrency bill to be included in the Parliament’s winter meeting. Former Finance Minister Subhash Chandra Garg stated that he has no confidence in the Indian government’s ability to find cryptocurrencies. The inter-ministerial committee led by Gag drafted the original encryption bill, proposing a ban on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
India failed to introduce encryption bill in parliament again
The Indian government failed to introduce the cryptocurrency bill listed at the Lok Sabha winter meeting of the lower house of the Indian parliament. The meeting ended on Thursday.
The news outlet said that former Finance Minister Subhash Chandra Garg told IANS publications on Thursday when commenting on the government’s failure to introduce an encryption bill, “he has no confidence in the government’s ability to address the complexity of this new encryption phenomenon.” To quote him further:
When the government expressed its intention to introduce a bill on the introduction of a crypto-asset/currency bill at the winter meeting of parliament, I expressed serious doubts. Therefore, I am not surprised to see that the transparency of the content of the bill is currently zero.
The Indian government has not disclosed the content of the encryption bill. However, there are reports that the government has decided to regulate crypto assets but prohibits the use of cryptocurrencies for payments. The country’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently stated that the bill needs to be reformulated.
The original encryption bill was drafted by the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) led by Jag. The “Prohibition of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of the Official Digital Currency Act of 2019” proposes to ban all cryptocurrencies and regulate digital currencies issued by the Central Bank of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). However, Gag, who resigned from the government, now believes that encrypted assets should be regulated as commodities.
See also Regulatory structure needs to be reformed to allow technology development: Telecom minister
This is the second time that the Indian government has failed to introduce an encryption bill after putting it on the parliamentary agenda. The first time was at the budget meeting in February.
According to Garg, the Indian government is sandwiched between two opposing parties: the Reserve Bank of India and the crypto industry. Noting that the government seemed unable to make a decision, he described:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) believes that encryption technology and companies are only in currency business, and has been constantly urging the government to ban encrypted currencies and legally authorize RBI to issue digital bank notes.
The Reserve Bank of India stated at its recent central board meeting that cryptocurrencies must be completely banned and emphasized that a partial ban will not work. Shaktikanta Das, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has repeatedly reiterated that the central bank has serious and major concerns about cryptocurrencies.
Garg added: “Cryptocurrency exchanges want the government to treat cryptocurrencies as assets and establish a regulatory mechanism for them in law.”
He explained that the government also faces other key issues, including the possibility of crypto being abused in Hawala and money laundering, billions of dollars worth of investments fleeing overseas, and crypto investors not paying capital gains taxes.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently stated that cryptocurrency should be used to empower democracy, not to undermine it. He urged Democrats to work together to ensure that cryptocurrencies do not fall into the wrong hands. Last week, his Twitter account was hacked and he posted a tweet stating that India has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender and the government has purchased Bitcoin to distribute to residents.
What do you think of India’s failure to introduce a cryptocurrency bill in parliament again? And, what do you think of Garg’s comments? Please let us know in the comments section below.
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