PAN to be common business identifier

The government on Monday announced the Rs 1,435 crore PAN 2.0 Project to make the permanent account number a “common business identifier” for all digital systems of government agencies.

The project would enable technology-driven transformation of taxpayer registration services and was aimed at ease of access and speedy service delivery with improved quality.

Single source of truth and data consistency; eco-friendly processes and cost optimisation; and security and optimisation of infrastructure for greater agility, were the other benefits of the project.

An official release said, “The PAN 2.0 Project resonates with the vision of the government enshrined in Digital India by enabling the use of PAN as common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies.”

“This will be an upgrade of the current PAN/TAN 1.0 eco-system consolidating the core and non-core PAN/TAN activities as well as PAN validation service,” the release added.

Currently, nearly 78 crore PANs have been issued, of which 98 per cent are to individuals.