KOLKATA: About 34 lakh Aadhaar card holders in West Bengal have been found to be 'deceased' since the identity card was introduced in January 2009, UIDAI authorities informed the Election Commission.

The UIDAI authorities also communicated to the EC that about 13 lakh people in the state never possessed Aadhaar cards, but have since died.

The information was shared during a meeting between officials of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) and the state's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal, amid the ongoing enumeration exercise of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The meeting followed an EC directive asking all state CEOs to coordinate with Aadhaar authorities to verify voter data and identify discrepancies.

"The EC has received numerous complaints regarding ghost voters, deceased voters, absentee voters, and duplicate names in the rolls. The UIDAI data on deceased citizens is expected to help us in detecting and removing such entries from the electoral rolls," a senior official from the CEO's office said on Wednesday.

Following the enumeration phase and publication of the draft rolls on December 9, if applicants are found to have submitted forms with names that have been removed from the Aadhaar database, they could be summoned by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) concerned for verification, he said.