Permanent Account Number, PAN allotment by the Income Tax department will remain suspended for five days from tomorrow owing to a software upgrade exercise.<br/><br/>However, applications for fresh PAN will continue through offline and online modes during this period on the two designated and government-authorised web portals of NSDL and UTIITSL. Income Tax Department in a statement said, the backlog of PAN applications will be cleared within three days. <br/><br/>PAN is a 10-digit unique alpha-numeric number allotted by the department to individuals and entities for tax purposes.