Tax dept receives 1.5-2.5 million PAN applications per week: Govt

The Income-Tax Department (ITD) receives 1.5-2.5 million Permanent Account Number (PAN) applications per week, and takes a few hours to two weeks to allot the 10-digit alphanumeric identifier, the government has informed Parliament.

The allotment of PAN is being carried out by the tax department through two service providers, NSDL e-Gov and UTIITSL, which collect applications, process them, digitise the data and submit the same to ITD for final allotment of PANs.

Subsequently, physical PAN card and/or e-PAN card is issued to the applicant.

"Presently, on an average, 1.5-2.5 million PAN applications are being received per week.

"The time taken for processing these applications and allotment of PAN generally ranges from few hours to two weeks," Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

As on January 28, 2018, a total of 20,73,434 applications were under process/pending for allotment of PAN and issuance of PAN card, the minister said.

He further said the agreement with the service providers has in-built clause for levy of penalty in case of delay and the same is invoked in appropriate cases.