Five states ready for GST registration based on Aadhaar technology

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Five states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, have shown interest in rolling out Aadhaar-based authentication for GST registration, an official said on Monday.

The biometric-based authentication was discussed at the third National Co-ordination Meeting of senior Central and State GST officers earlier this month.

Currently, two states, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Puducherry have launched the Aadhaar authentication of taxpayers on a pilot basis.

"Around five states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, have shown interest in implementing Aadhaar-based authentication for GST registration," an official told PTI.

The official further said that these states wanted to assess the cost involved, the infrastructure and manpower requirement for implementing the requirement of biometric authentication for registration.

The data has been provided to them and based on the assessment, these states will have to put the proposal up before the state Cabinets for approval.

Goods and Services Tax (GST) authorities have so far been using OTP-based Aadhaar authentication to establish the identity of the applicants, seeking registration.

However, with instances coming to light wherein other people's identity was misused to create bogus firms for claiming input tax credit (ITC), the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had decided to move towards biometric authentication under which in certain suspicious cases, the person seeking registration will be asked to go to an Aadhaar centre to have his biometrics verified.

As per the analysis of April GST revenues, Karnataka is the second biggest contributor, followed by Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Maharashtra garnered the largest chunk of revenue during the month.

The GST collections, which include central and state mop-up, breached the Rs 2 trillion milestone in a month in April since the rollout of the unified tax system.

Goods and Services Tax collections grew 12.4 per cent to a record high of Rs 2.10 trillion in April. The revenue growth was aided by strong economic momentum and increased domestic transactions and imports.