The Income Tax Department has either deleted or de-activated over 11.44 lakh Permanent Account Numbers wherein one person held multiple PANs, the Finance Ministry told Parliament in a written reply on Wednesday.

In the reply, Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar wrote that 11.44 lakh PANs had been identified as duplicate till July 27.

Additionally, 1,566 PANs were found to be 'fake' as on July 27. These were allocated to either non- existent people or in the names of people with fabricated identities.

The Assessing Officer is responsible for deletion or de-activation of the with the help of a software. PAN is the key identifier of taxable entity and aggregator of all financial transactions undertaken by one person.

Gangwar also addressed a question which asked for data on retrieval of undisclosed income in the aftermath of demonetisation. As per the minister, the I-T department has seized Rs 900 crore and received admission of undisclosed income worth Rs 7,961 crore between November 2016 to March 2017.

He said that 8,239 surveys were conducted as well and resulted into the department discovering undisclosed income of Rs 6,745 crore.

On 'Operation Clean Money' which was launched early this year, Gangwar mentioned that the I-T department has detected around 18 lakh people with cash transaction records which did not fall in line with their tax profile. The department has approached these people through email or messages on phone.