The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: A cabinet committee of the Union government has given its approval for what the Income Tax department is calling is the ‘PAN 2.0’ project.
The Union government will spend Rs 1,435 crore for the project, the Press Information Bureau has announced in a release. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has additionally claimed that the PAN card will now have a QR code. Specific details on what the project will do are not in the public domain so far.
The PAN is a Permanent Account Number is a 10-digit identifier issued to persons by the Income Tax department.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) which gave its approval on November 25 is chaired by the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
The project will re-engineer the business processes of taxpayer registration services through technology. Current PAN and TAN systems will be upgraded. The PAN validation service, along with “core and non-core” allied activities will be brought under an umbrella.
The government is looking to establish the PAN as a common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies.
The PAN 2.0 Project will, according to the government, enable “technology driven transformation of taxpayer registration services”.
The government claims that this will have the following benefits:
- 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.