Biometric PAN cards in the offing, says FinMin

Chidambaram, who recently reviewed the functioning of the PAN system, has asked the income tax (I-T) department to ensure that all duplicate PAN cards were identified and removed from the system by December 2006.

The move to introduce new PAN cards has been prompted not just by recent incidents of issue of fake cards but also terrorism threat.

At present, penal provisions are restricted to issuance and use of duplicate PAN cards. But abetting the issuance of or use of duplicate PAN cards does not attract any penal provision at present.

The department, which has so far identified 26 lakh PAN cards (2.6 million) for around 13 lakh (1.3 million) people, will soon come out with a media campaign, asking people to voluntarily surrender their duplicate numbers to the department.

The need to tighten norms for issuance of PAN card is being felt in the wake of the large number of PAN card applications, a government official said. In the last 11 weeks, the tax department has received 18 lakh (1.8 million) applications for PANs. The department has so far issued 4.6 crore (46 million) permanent account numbers.

The department has already asked PAN service centres operated by the National Securities Depository Ltd. and the UTI Securities to undertake 100 percent re-verification at their digitization centres.

They have also been asked not to accept PAN applications without the full names of the applicants.

Earlier, applicants were allowed to use initials while filling the forms.

The department is also considering removing some of the validation documents allowed earlier as proof of identity and address, such as water bill and rent receipt.

It is also mulling introduction of "scoring," which means that weightage will be assigned to various documents being allowed as proof of identity and address.

For instance, submission of the Class X board exam mark-sheet for proof of age will be assigned higher weightage than a letter containing the signature of a gazetted officer or an MLA. The latter with a low weightage will require more verification.

Though officials fear that I-T department may face some criticism for seeking more details, the price of the cards appears to be a bigger problem for the moment. At present, getting a PAN card costs Rs. 67.

Preliminary estimates with the I-T department suggests that the biometric cards could cost anything between Rs. 200 and Rs. 300, leaving aside the cost of setting up the infrastructure to issue these cards.