The Indian Finance Ministry has scheduled a meeting on April 4, 2023, to examine the current Goods and Services Tax (GST) systems and the functioning of the GSTN portal, ahead of plans to integrate technologies like advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence in the coming year to identify tax evaders. The meeting will cover various topics including the practical ways of submitting tax returns and the current technical challenges. The GST collection in March 2023 reached INR 1.6 lakh crore, a 13% increase and the second biggest tax collection since the introduction of the indirect tax in July 2017. The meeting aims to ensure that the GST portal functions correctly for the upcoming fiscal year, with the Centre’s GST revenue for FY23-FY24 projected to increase by 12% to INR 9.56 lakh crore.

Indian tax authorities collected Rs 158 crore (approx. $19 million) in TDS on the transfer of virtual digital assets (VDA) till March 20, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told the Parliament on Tuesday. 

According to data acquired by Finbold, three cryptocurrency firms with a cumulative valuation of $42.3 billion made it to the list of top 10 leading fintech unicorns globally as of Q4 2022.

According to the Union Finance Ministry, tax collected at source on payments made upon the transfer of virtual digital assets totaled $19.2 million for the fiscal year up to March 20, 2023.

Blockchain protocol Algorand has launched AlgoBharat, a project aimed at supporting India's transition to the Web3 world by focusing on real-world blockchain utility in the country. AlgoBharat won't have a registered entity in India but will have a dedicated team. The project is broken up into three pillars: broadening the Web3 developer base through education and events at universities; focusing on startups transitioning from Web2 to Web3, and focusing on high-profile use case partnerships with central and state governments. Algorand has already announced partnerships with the state of Maharashtra, SEWA, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, the Indian School of Business, and T-Hub. (Coindesk)

India has asked state-owned banks to focus on their stress testing methods after they were found to have fallen behind on developing models that are meant to ward off risks of failure.

By 2027, the number of users in the Cryptocurrencies segment in India is expected to reach 191.80 million,.

According to a recent Statista report, India’s crypto community could surge to more than 156 million members by the end of the year. 

Bringing greater visibility as well as solving the regulatory uncertainties and modifying tax regulations which are unfavorable to stakeholders would go a long way toward bolstering the growing Cryptocurrency usage in India.

The Indian Railways has taken the absolute landmark decision to incorporate blockchain technology for the first time. This followed the conduct of a highly educational and informative workshop at the National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR), based in Vadodara, Gujarat. This very exercise was carried out along with ChainCode Consulting as well as Polygon.