Maharashtra has prepared a draft law to create India’s first legal framework for blockchain-based Tokenization of land and other immovable assets, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on September 9. The proposed Maharashtra Digitisation and Exchange of Land Token Asset Act, or DELTA Act, is currently under review by a committee. The Bill has not yet been enacted and no land tokens have been issued. Fadnavis said the proposed legislation could be ready within the next four to five months.
Fadnavis made the announcement while addressing the Global Fintech Fest 2026 at Mumbai’s Jio World Centre. He said the state had put in place the architecture of the DELTA Act and formed a committee to undertake a complete review. The initiative is aimed at creating a legal framework through which interests in land and other immovable property could eventually be represented through digital tokens recorded on a blockchain or distributed ledger.
From Potential to Impact: Building the Future of Finance!
Glad to addresses the ‘Global Fintech Fest 2026’ on Potential to Impact: Agentic AI – Tokenisation – Quantum in Mumbai, today.
It was a pleasure to be back at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, the financial capital of… https://t.co/OgO0A7SVct pic.twitter.com/CyuQJ3ArrP
— Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) September 9, 2026
The Chief Minister said the recommendations had already reached the executive committee. Maharashtra is seeking expertise from several institutions and sectors while working on the proposed legislation. These include the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), National Stock Exchange (NSE), industry, technology, law and academia. The state also plans to study laws and frameworks in other countries before finalising its approach.
The proposal is part of Fadnavis’s larger ambition to make Maharashtra a fintech testbed. He said the state should be seen not merely as a market but as a laboratory for financial innovation. The Chief Minister has linked the initiative to a commitment he said he made at the previous edition of the fintech festival, when he spoke about Maharashtra becoming “India’s first tokenized state”.
The government sees a large economic opportunity in bringing land and real estate into a Tokenized system. Fadnavis has estimated the latent value locked in Maharashtra’s land and real estate at around ₹50 lakh crore. The figure is a government estimate and not a market valuation. The proposed framework is intended to help unlock some of this dormant value, improve liquidity and allow ordinary citizens to potentially realise value from their property and other assets.
In theory, Tokenization could allow legal interests in property to be represented through digital units. Such a system could potentially make title checks faster, support fractional interests and make it easier to use property as collateral. However, these possibilities will depend entirely on how the final law defines the rights attached to a token and how the system is connected to existing property and financial laws.
Fadnavis has also stressed that the objective is not speculative trading. He has described Tokenization as a way to unlock productive capital, improve liquidity and convert dormant property value into economic use. This distinction is important because the proposed DELTA framework is not a plan to launch a Maharashtra-backed cryptocurrency or to open the state to unrestricted crypto trading.
Source: globalfintechfest.com
The government had already begun work on the proposal before the Global Fintech Fest announcement. On July 20, 2026, Fadnavis chaired a meeting on the DELTA Act draft at Sahyadri Guest House in Mumbai. Officials were directed to work on legislation aimed at unlocking the latent value embedded in immovable properties. The government also planned to involve experts from SEBI, BSE and NSE and examine global laws.
However, converting land into legally recognised digital tokens is considerably more complicated than simply putting property records on a blockchain. Indian land ownership involves title verification, mutation, registration, stamp duty, tenancy and mortgage rules. For Tokenization to have real legal value, a token would have to represent a legally recognised interest in property. If it merely becomes another digital copy of existing land records, the system would essentially be digitisation rather than genuine Tokenization.
The proposed framework may therefore have to interact with several existing laws and regulatory systems. Depending on how the tokens are structured and used, issues could arise under the Registration Act, Transfer of Property Act, stamp-duty rules, the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, or RERA, banking rules relating to creation of charges and potentially securities regulations.
The final framework will also have to answer practical questions such as who controls the digital keys, who updates ownership records after a court order, who is responsible for an incorrect mutation and what happens when a Tokenized property is involved in foreclosure.
Several technical details are also yet to be decided. Maharashtra has not announced a specific blockchain network, token standard, issuance platform, custody model or secondary-market design. These details could become important because the legal rights attached to the tokens will ultimately determine whether they can be transferred, pledged, sold in fractions or used for lending.
The DELTA initiative is also different from other Tokenization projects being explored in India. SEBI has been pursuing Tokenization-related work involving financial instruments such as corporate bonds, while other experiments have focused on digital securities and settlement. The Maharashtra proposal goes further into the property sector by attempting to establish a legal framework for tokenizing land and other immovable assets.
The initiative also comes against a wider backdrop of cautious regulation of cryptocurrencies in India. Maharashtra has separately moved to bring virtual digital assets linked to fraudulent schemes under the Maharashtra Protection of Interests of Depositors framework. The broader policy direction therefore appears to distinguish between using blockchain technology for records, assets and financial infrastructure and allowing unregulated crypto schemes.
The proposed legislation will also require coordination with the Union government and other institutions. While land is largely a state subject, areas such as capital markets, banking settlement and cross-border distribution involve central authorities. Consumer protection will also depend on the final rules governing ownership, custody, transfers and disputes.
The next stage will therefore be closely watched. The committee review could change definitions, investor access and the distinction between a digital land record and a tradable security. The government will eventually need to publish the Bill, clarify the legal status of the tokens, establish how the registration system will work and determine how a supervised issuance would take place.
For now, Maharashtra has prepared the proposed legal architecture but has not launched a Tokenized land market. As of September 9, 2026, the DELTA Act remained a draft under committee review. Its importance lies not in the immediate issuance of land tokens, but in Maharashtra’s attempt to create the legal foundation that could allow land and other immovable assets to enter the blockchain-based real-world asset economy.
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