Hope new Infosys leadership continues to make GSTN robust: GSTN Chairman

GST Network Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey today hoped that the new leadership at Infosys will continue with the efforts to further strengthen the portal and make it convenient for businesses to file returns.

In the first four months of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), over 3 crore returns have been filed on the GST Network (GSTN) portal, with 80 lakh alone being filed in November.

Speaking to PTI, Pandey said the return filing on the portal has been increasing by 5 lakh every month on an incremental basis and expressed hope that the new leadership at Infosys would carry the momentum forward.

The comments of the GSTN chief comes at a time when Salil Parekh has been named the next CEO of Infosys, ending three months of high-profile executive search at the IT services firm that has been bruised by an internal turmoil.

GSTN is providing the technology backbone for collection of taxes and filing of returns in the new indirect tax regime and Infosys has developed the software for the same.

"Our meeting at the officer level is always there. Whenever there was a GoM meeting, the CEO used to come for the meeting... Apart from individual meeting, what is more important is work should get done and hope the new leadership (at Infosys) will also take it forward," Pandey said.

Pandey was responding to a query on whether he is slated to meet the new Infosys CEO.

Parekh was appointed Infosys CEO and Managing Director last week and will take charge from January 2 for five years.

The Bengaluru-based firm had initiated the search after previous CEO Vishal Sikka resigned in August following a protracted acrimony between the then management and the high profile founders.

A section of bureaucracy had blamed the top-level vacancy in Infosys for the glitches in the GSTN portal during the filing of GSTR-3B returns in the initial months as well as the matching of purchase return (GSTR-2) with the final sales return (GSTR-1).

Asked if GSTN is satisfied with the handling of back-end software by Infosys, Pandey said: "The GSTN system is showing improvement and everybody who is working for this need to continue their efforts to make the system even more robust and comfortable for more people."

Infosys won a 5-year government contract worth of Rs 1,380 crore in 2015 to develop the IT system for the biggest indirect tax reform, GST.

Pandey further said that till December 2 as many as 52.5 lakh businesses have filed GST returns for October. The corresponding figure of monthly return for September, which was filed by November 2, was 48 lakh.

"In one month, there was a jump of 4.5 lakh businesses filing GST returns. This is a significant number. It shows that GSTN system is stabilising," Pandey said.

The group of ministers, headed by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi, was set up in September to streamline the issues faced by businesses while transacting on the portal and also to make it more user-friendly.

The GoM had earlier asked Infosys to deploy more engineers at the state level to ensure smooth functioning of the system.