TLDR
- Maharashtra is drafting a policy to tokenize state-owned assets, including electricity transmission infrastructure
- The state wants to raise fresh capital from token holders to fund new power lines and solar storage
- India’s securities regulator SEBI launched a tokenized corporate bond pilot raising $107 million
- Three companies issued bonds under the new Demat 2.0 system, which settles instantly using a wholesale CBDC
- Maharashtra’s chief minister has also directed officials to draft a dedicated blockchain property law called the DELTA Act
Maharashtra, India’s richest state, is working on a policy to put its government-owned assets on blockchain. The plan, outlined by Praveen Pardeshi, CEO of state policy body MITRA, was shared at an invite-only event hosted by real estate tokenization firm RealX in Mumbai.
🇮🇳HUGE: India has officially started tokenizing its $620 BILLION corporate bond market using the digital rupee.
SEBI and the Reserve Bank of India launched "Demat 2.0," turning corporate bonds into digital tokens and settling payments through the RBI's wholesale digital rupee.… pic.twitter.com/PkyVRS68SO
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 12, 2026
Pardeshi said the state’s electricity transmission infrastructure is the main focus. These power lines earn steady fee income but the capital tied up in them cannot easily be redeployed.
Maharashtra faces a surplus of solar power but does not have enough grid capacity to move it where it is needed. Pardeshi said tokenizing a portion of those assets could fix that.
How the Tokenization Plan Would Work
The idea is to tokenize around 40% to 50% of the transmission infrastructure. Token holders would receive a share of the income those assets generate. The money raised from selling tokens would then fund new transmission lines and solar storage.
Pardeshi was clear that this is not privatization. “Tokenization doesn’t mean privatization wholesale; it means circulating the capital to a larger number of holders,” he said.
He pointed to Express Towers, a Mumbai commercial building that was tokenized under a REIT structure, as a working example of the model.
The electricity pricing gap in Maharashtra makes the case clearer. Distribution companies pay 16 to 18 rupees per unit during peak hours, while power on the exchange costs as little as 2 paisa during surplus hours. Better transmission and storage, funded through tokenized capital, could help close that gap.
The proposal sits alongside a separate legislative push. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis directed officials in July to draft the Maharashtra Digitisation and Exchange of Land Token Assets Act, known as the DELTA Act. If passed, it would make Maharashtra the first Indian state with a dedicated blockchain property tokenization law. The bill is still in draft form.
SEBI Launches Tokenized Bond Pilot
At the national level, India’s Securities and Exchange Board of India launched a tokenized corporate bond pilot this week under a system called Demat 2.0.
Three companies raised a combined 10.25 billion rupees, roughly $107 million, through the pilot. Public-sector lender REC raised 5 billion rupees from 18 investors. Engineering group Larsen and Toubro raised another 5 billion rupees from four investors. Non-bank lender IIFL raised 250 million rupees from one investor.
The system uses a distributed ledger connected to the Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale central bank digital currency. Atomic settlement means bonds and payments move at the same time, removing the usual two-to-three day delay.
Investors can hold the bonds in existing Demat accounts without new KYC checks. SEBI said India is the first country to combine native bond issuance on a distributed ledger, depository-held records, and CBDC settlement within regulated market infrastructure.
Later phases of Demat 2.0 will open secondary trading and retail access.
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