Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launches instant allotment of e-PAN based on Aadhaar

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday launched a facility for instant allotment of online PAN on furnishing of Aadhaar details.

The Budget 2020-21 had proposed to launch a system under which Permanent Account Number shall be instantly allotted online on the basis of Aadhaar without filling up the detailed application form as it sought to further ease the process of PAN allotment.

In a statement, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday formally launched the facility for instant allotment of PAN (on near to real time basis).

"This facility is now available for those PAN applicants who possess a valid Aadhaar number and have a mobile number registered with Aadhaar. The allotment process is paperless and an electronic PAN (e-PAN) is issued to the applicants free of cost," the CBDT said. 

The 'beta version' for instant allotment of PAN on trial basis was started on February 12, 2020 on the e-filing website of the Income Tax Department. Since then, 6,77,680 instant PANs have been allotted with a turnaround time of about 10 minutes, till May 25, 2020.

As on May 25, 2020, a total of 50.52 crore PANs had been allotted to taxpayers, out of which around 49.39 crore were allotted to individuals and more than 32.17 crore linked with Aadhaar.

The last date for the PAN-Aadhaar linkage is June 30, 2020.

For generation of instant PAN, the applicant is required to access the e-filing website of the Income Tax Department, provide her/his valid Aadhaar number and then submit the OTP received on the Aadhaar registered mobile number.

On successful completion of the process, a 15-digit acknowledgement number is generated. If required, the applicant can check the status of the request anytime by providing her/his valid Aadhaar number and on successful allotment, can download the e-PAN. 

The e-PAN is also sent to the applicant on her/his e-mail ID, if it is registered with Aadhaar, the CBDT said.

"The launch of the Instant PAN facility is yet another step by the Income Tax Department towards Digital India, thereby creating further ease of compliance for the taxpayers," the CBDT added.