Former Indian Finance Secretary urges government to regulate crypto instead of banning them

According to the PTI report, Subhash Chandra Garg, who headed the committee that drafted India’s cryptocurrency bill, said Thursday at a virtual event organized by industry body Assocham that the Indian government should regulate cryptocurrencies instead of prohibiting them. He added, “I don’t think we still have full clarity and understanding about how to regulate cryptocurrencies … Regulate, control cryptocurrencies but allow the crypto assets, encourage the crypto services.”

Former Finance Secretary believes crypto-assets should not be banned.

The former finance secretary, who resigned from his government position in July 2019, headed the interministerial committee (IMC) that drafted the cryptocurrency bill entitled “Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019.” However, earlier this year, Subhash Garg said that when he drafted the crypto bill, cryptocurrencies were competing with India’s national currency, and crypto assets were not prominent at the time. Now, he believes that cryptocurrencies should not be banned. It was reported that the Indian government is planning to put a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies. 

Indian government is planning to introduce a crypto bill. 

As reported earlier, the Indian government had planned to introduce the crypto bill in the Budget session of parliament, which already ended with no such bill being introduced. The Indian finance minister and the Minister of State have answered some questions about the crypto bill. However, the government has not announced a new plan of when the bill will be introduced. Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the government might not ban cryptocurrency entirely and leave an area for research in this field. Earlier last year, the Supreme Court of India had lifted the ban on crypto put by the Reserve Bank of India. 

Contributed by Coinnounce.