GST Council Rolls Out Bio-Metric Based Aadhaar Authentication On All-India Basis

The Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman in the 53rd GST Council Meeting proposed to roll out biometric based aadhaar authentication on an all-India basis.

The GST Council recommended to roll-out the biometric-based Aadhaar authentication of registration applicants on pan-India basis in a phased manner. This will strengthen the registration process in GST and will help in combating fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) claims made through fake invoices.

“We ran a pilot in Gujarat and in Puducherry. There have been very good inputs coming out of it. This will help us combat fraudulent input tax credit claims made through fake invoices in some cases. So the GST council has recommended to roll-out biometric-based Aadhaar authentication of registration of applicants on an all India basis in a phased manner,” the Finance Minister while addressing the Press Conference said.

The Pilot Project of Biometric-Based Aadhaar Authentication and Document Verification for GST Registration was an initiative by the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) to streamline the GST registration process and enhance its security. The project was initially launched in Puducherry on August 30, 2023, and was rolled out in Gujarat on November 7, 2023.