The government on Friday extended the deadline for citizens to link their Aadhaar number with their Permanent Account Number by three months to March 31. The directive from the Central Board of Direct Taxes applies to even those who already have the 12-digit number.

On Thursday, the Centre had told the Supreme Court that it was willing to extend the deadline to link Aadhaar with 139 services to March 31 from December 31 for those who do not have the unique identification number yet. The government said it would publish a notification on the Aadhaar-linking deadline on Friday.

“It has come to notice that some of the taxpayers have not yet completed the linking of PAN with Aadhaar,” the Ministry of Finance said. “Therefore, to facilitate the process of linking, it has been decided to further extend the time for linking of Aadhaar with PAN till March 31, 2018.”

The Centre had made linking Aadhaar with PAN compulsory to file income tax returns and for any bank transaction over Rs 50,000.