India’s tax agency has played a prominent role in promoting the adoption of digital public infrastructure (DPI) initiatives including unique identification numbers for individuals, International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in the working papers.
In India, the Permanent Account Number (PAN), which came earlier than the Aadhaar card, is a unique, ten-character, alphanumeric identifier issued to all judicial entities identifiable under the Indian Income Tax Act, 1961 and was introduced in 1972. For all tax purposes, the PAN was made mandatory. Accompanied by a laminated identification card, PANs saw widespread use in other areas of public administration. This is reflected by the fact that far more PANs were issued than the number of active taxpayers under management at any one time (estimates suggest nearly 400 million were issued in excess of active taxpayers).