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 launch has come after the initial announcement was made in the Union Budget 2020. 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.