Reliance Industries Limited has announced that it will integrate blockchain in its transportation business by launching blockchain for the Bill of Lading and Letter of Credit transactions. The blockchains will be up and running in 12 months. It has claimed that its blockchain will be able to fulfil thousands of nodes on the first day.
The announcement on integrating blockchain with its businesses was first made by Mukesh Ambani at Reliance Annual General Meeting on August 2019. Ambani had said,
Using blockchain we can deliver unprecedented security, trust, automation and efficiency to almost any type of transaction.
He also stressed on the data security aspect of blockchain and said, “Data is wealth, and Indian wealth must remain in India.”
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The transportation sector involves documentation on the part of the supplier; the transporter as well as the buyer. Sometimes goods reach their destination without proper documentation. Lack of documentation stops further action on goods, and they get stuck. Sometimes documents are created, but the details filled in them are wrong. This can also delay shipments. This leads to disputes between various parties.
Blockchain architecture can resolve these issues. A Bill of Lading created on a blockchain is visible to all the parties involved. Any mistakes can be corrected before the actual shipment of items commences. Thus, blockchain improves coordination between various actors in the transportation supply chain.
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Moreover, data recorded on a blockchain is immutable. Blockchain is distributed ledger technology. Each transaction on it is verified by multiple validators before being entered into the ledger. If any change is made, then it has to be validated again by all the validators. Thus, if any correction is made to an existing Bill of Lading then, it will have to be validated all over again. This immutability is very helpful in resolving disputes as all parties can access the records online to verify the details of the transaction.
