FM tells Infosys CEO to ensure all I-T portal glitches are fixed by Sept 15

Salil Parekh told Nirmala Sitharaman that over 750 team members are working on this project and Pravin Rao, COO of Infosys, is personally overseeing this project

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday sought an explanation from Infosys CEO for the repeated issues faced by taxpayers on the nation's new electronic tax filing portal, which was developed by the IT major. 

"Nirmala Sitharaman took a meeting with Salil Parekh, MD & CEO, Infosys to convey the deep disappointment and concerns of the Government and the taxpayers about the continuing glitches in the e-filing portal of the Income Tax Department even after two and half months since its launch, which was also delayed. The Ministry of Finance emphasised that there is a need for putting in more resources and efforts on the part of Infosys so that the much delayed delivery of agreed services is ensured. Parekh was also sensitised on the difficulties that the taxpayers were facing and the problems that are arising on account of the delays in the functioning of the portal," said Ministry of Finance in a statement. 

The Finance Minister demanded that the issues faced by taxpayers on current functionalities of the portal should be resolved by the team by September 15, 2021 so that "taxpayers and professionals can work seamlessly on the portal".

Parekh explained that he and his team are doing everything to ensure the smooth functioning of the portal. He also said that over 750 team members are working on this project and Pravin Rao, COO of Infosys, is personally overseeing this project. Parekh also assured that Infosys is working expeditiously to ensure a glitch-free experience to the taxpayers on the portal, the ministry said.

On Sunday, the Income Tax Department in a Twitter post said Parekh has been summoned by the minister to explain the problems.

The portal, which went live on June 7, was not accessible on August 21 and 22 till late evening. It came back after what the tech major described was an "emergency maintenance".

This is the second time that Sitharaman has met the Infosys team over the issue. She had on June 22 met Parekh and COO Pravin Rao.

Infosys was awarded the contract in 2019 to develop the new portal. The project was aimed at developing the next-generation income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns from 63 days to one day and also expedite refunds.

The new income tax e-filing portal 'www.incometax.gov.in', however, faced tech glitches from day one with users complaining that certain functionalities were either unavailable or working slow.

Consequently, the I-T department had to allow the manual filing of remittance forms and also extend due dates for electronic filing of forms related to intimation by pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

"Ministry of Finance has summoned Sh Salil Parekh, MD &CEO @Infosys on 23/08/2021 to explain to hon'ble FM as to why even after 2.5 months since the launch of new e-filing portal, glitches in the portal have not been resolved. In fact, since 21/08/2021 the portal itself is not available," the I-T department had tweeted on Sunday.

Infosys India Business Unit in a late evening tweet on Sunday said, "The emergency maintenance of the @IncomeTaxIndia portal has concluded and the portal is live. We regret any inconvenience caused to taxpayers.