The government on Thursday launched the facility to generate instant electronic permanent account number (e-PAN), which is available for applicants having a mobile number linked with their Aadhar. The allotment process is paperless and an e-PAN is issued to the applicants free of cost, the government said in a statement.
The measure was announced in the Budget earlier this year and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman formally launched it. The income tax department’s e-filing portal hosts the process of application for e-PAN. An applicant has to provide a valid Aadhaar number on the website and use the subsequent one-time password (OTP) to generate a 15-digit acknowledgment number.
“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 email id, if it is registered with Aadhaar,” the government said.
Before the formal launch of the facility, its ‘beta version’ on trial basis was started on February 12 on the e-filing website of income tax department. Till May 25, over 6.77 lakh instant PANs have been allotted with a turnaround time of about 10 minutes, the government said.
As of May 25, a total of 50.52 crore PANs, including 49.39 crore against individuals, more than 32.17 crore are seeded with Aadhaar so far, it said.