The government has no proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a legal tender in the country, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a reply to the Lok Sabha on Monday. She also informed the House that the government does not collect data on Bitcoin transactions.
The reply from the government comes as it plans to introduce the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament. The Bill seeks to ban all but a few private cryptocurrencies to promote underlying technologies while allowing an official digital currency by RBI.
Worth mentioning here is that Bitcoin is reportedly the first decentralised digital currency where peer-to-peer transactions take place without any intermediary. Introduced in 2008, by an unidentified group of programmers as a cryptocurrency and an electronic payment system, Bitcoin has gained massive popularity across the world with El Salvador becoming the first country in September this year to recognise the cryptocurrency as a legal tender.
According to the legislative agenda for the Winter Session, the Centre plans to allow only certain cryptocurrencies to promote the underlying technology and its uses.
Through the cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, India is also looking to make a framework for the official digital currency that will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The central bank has voiced “serious concerns” about private cryptocurrencies and is set to launch its own digital currency by December.
In reply to another question, Sitharaman said, ministries and departments have spent Rs 2.29 lakh crore as capital expenditure during the April-September period of the current fiscal. This is 41% of the Budget Estimate (BE) of Rs 5.54 lakh crore for 2021-22. The actual expenditure during current fiscal is about 38% higher than the corresponding expenditure in FY 2020-21, she said.
To accelerate capital expenditure for creation and upgradation of infrastructure in the economy, Government of India had launched the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) with projected infrastructure investment of Rs 111 lakh crore during the period 2020-2025 to provide world-class infrastructure across the country, and improve the quality of life for all citizens.
