Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on May 28, 2020 officially launched the instant Permanent Account Number (PAN) facility which uses Aadhaar number based e-KYC. The beta facility was earlier launched in February 2020 on the income tax department’s e-filing website.

The is a paperless, real-time basis facility. As per the income tax department, the turn-around time of allotting the PAN through this facility is 10 minutes. Only those applicants who have a valid Aadhaar number and have a mobile number registered with Aadhaar can use this facility. This electronic PAN (e-PAN) will be issued to applicants free-of-cost, the department said on its Twitter handle.

The launch has come after the initial announcement was made in the Union Budget 2020. While making the announcement, FM said, “In the last Budget, I had introduced the interchangebility of PAN and Aadhaar for which necessary rules were already notified. In order to further ease the process of allotment of PAN, soon we will launch a system under which PAN shall be instantly alloted online on the basis of Aadhaar without any requirement for filing up of detailed application form.”

Since the launch of ‘Beta version’ on trial basis on February 12, 2020, 6.77 lakh instant PANs have been allotted till May 25, 2020. Further, as on May 25, 2020, a total of 50.52 crore PANs have been allotted to taxpayers, out of which around 49.39 crore are allotted to individuals and more than 32.17 crore are have been seeded with Aadhaar so far, said the finance ministry’s latest press release.

How to use this facility

The instant PAN applicant is required to visit the e-filing website of the income tax department to provide her/his valid Aadhaar number and then submit the OTP received on her/his Aadhaar registered mobile number.

On successful completion of this process, a 15-digit acknowledgment number is generated. If required, the applicant can check the status of the request anytime by providing their valid Aadhaar number and on successful allotment, can download the e-PAN. The e-PAN is also sent to the applicant’s email address, if it is registered with Aadhaar.