India Lists Crypto Bill that Will be Taken to Parliament

A cryptocurrency bill has been listed by the government of India that will be taken up in the parliament’s upcoming session that’s scheduled to begin in the next week. The purpose of the bill is to prohibit some of the cryptocurrencies, but there are some exceptions. In addition, it will also involve creating a facilitative framework for a digital rupee that will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). On Tuesday, the legislative agenda for the winter session of the lower house of parliament in India, known as Lok Sabha, revealed that a crypto bill had been listed by the Indian government. 

The bill has been given the title of ‘The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021’. The government is expecting the bill to be introduced as well as passed in the same session of the parliament, which will commence on 29th November, Monday and will end on December 23rd. As per the description mentioned by the government, the aim of the bill is to develop a facilitative framework that would be used for creating the official digital currency that the Reserve Bank of India will issue eventually. Moreover, the bill also intends to prohibit all other private cryptocurrencies in the country.

However, there will be certain exceptions for promoting the underlying technology that powers cryptocurrencies as well as its uses. This is not the first time that a cryptocurrency bill has been listed by the Indian government to be discussed in the parliament. A crypto bill had been listed in January for the budget session. But, the bill had not been taken up. The bill’s title, as well as the description that accompanies it, is exactly the same as the listing made for the parliament’s budget session. The chief executive of Policy 4.0, Tanvi Ratna also commented on the news of the listing of the crypto bill by the Indian government for the parliamentary session.

She said that it was expected that the Indian government would pass legislation in this session of the parliament. But, she said that it wouldn’t be complete legislation. She went on to say questions regarding implementation are probably going to be debated in the budget session. According to Ratna, there is a possibility that cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) could be permitted in some form. She also noted that the exemptions that had been mentioned in the crypto bill are those that are routed through GIFT city. 

She elaborated that private cryptocurrencies don’t refer to private coins, but denote non-rupee currencies. A senior government official said on Tuesday that the plan is to impose a ban on private crypto assets completely because they wanted to set the path for a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Previously, the RBI had disclosed that it was working on developing a digital rupee that would be launched in phases. The central bank has stated repeatedly that there are some major concerns associated with cryptocurrency. However, Indian crypto investors have urged the public to not start crypto selling as yet because the bill hasn’t been made public.