Use of the Permanent Account Number or PAN as a common identifier by businesses for all digital systems of specified government agencies will help in expediting clearances and promote ease of doing business, said Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) secretary Anurag Jain, reported news agency PTI.
In the Budget 2023 speech on Wednesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the PAN will be used as the “Common Business Identifier” for all digital systems of specified government agencies. This will bring ease of doing business.
Nirmala Sitharaman said, “For the business establishments required to have a Permanent Account Number (PAN), the PAN will be used as the common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies. This will bring ease of doing business; and it will be facilitated through a legal mandate.”
On Thursday, the DPIIT secretary told reporters, “With this single business ID, all the databases across the board will get integrated. So this will further promote ease of applying to the national single window system.”
Anurag Jain said the announcement would take about one year for implementation as it needs changes in rules and integration of systems across different departments. He said an inter-ministerial committee had recommended this.
"Just put your common number, every data which is already there get populated automatically...This will also help us in creating common returns," Jain said.
The secretary further added that all the 13 departments dealing with business approvals and clearances like commerce, industry, and environment, as well as all the 36 states and UTs, have agreed to this.
DPIIT Secretary said that funds have been allocated to infrastructure projects approved by the Network Planning Group (NPG), constituted under the PM Gati Shakti initiative.
"Focus on capex will give a huge push to the demand for steel and cement," Jain added.