With less than a month to go for the expiry of deadline for linking Aadhaar numbers to PAN, the government on Friday said that it had so far been able to link only about 50% of the PAN cards issued to Aadhaar numbers.
“As per the latest available information as on March 5... the number of Aadhaar cards linked with PAN is 16,65,82,421,” Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla informed the Lok Sabha. “Further, as on March 2... 8,779.65 lakh current accounts and savings accounts have been linked with Aadhaar.”
An August 2017 answer in the Lok Sabha shows that 32,68,25,653 PAN cards have been issued in the country as of that month. This means that, with about 20 days to go for the deadline to link PAN with Aadhaar, only about half of the PAN cards issued so far have been linked.
According to another answer in the Lok Sabha, the Finance Ministry said that as of April 2017, there were 92,45,06,506 savings and current accounts in public sector banks (PSBs) although there is no ready data on the number of accounts in private sector banks. The PSB data showed 94% of accounts in these banks have been linked with Aadhaar.
Share of private banks
However, given that private sector banks have about 20% market share in India, the actual proportion of accounts linked across the banking sector is likely to be less.
“The economy has just about come out of the impact of vast structural jerks of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax and is not ready for another challenge by way of any bank account becoming inoperative after March 31,” Assocham secretary general D.S. Rawat said in a statement.
