The Finance Ministry on Sunday summoned Chief Executive Officer of Infosys, Salil Parekh, to explain why the new income tax portal ( www.incometax.gov.in ), developed by the company, is yet to work seamlessly. The meeting is to take place on Monday.

“Ministry of Finance has summoned Salil Parekh, MD&CEO @Infosys on 23/08/2021 to explain to hon’ble FM as to why even after 2.5 months since 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 Income Tax Department said in a tweet. The portal went live on June 7 and since then has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

In a late evening tweet, Infosys said emergency maintenance of the income-tax portal has concluded and the portal is live. “We regret any inconvenience caused to taxpayers,” the company added.

Persistent problem

Speaking on the development, Ved Jain, a chartered accountant, said: “As Sunday’s message is on the official handle of the Income Tax Department, it may be useful/relevant to contest in case any adverse (action) has been taken against the assessee for non-submissions of reply/ non-compliance of any statutory requirement by the due date falling within this period.”

This is the second time that the top brass of the tech major has been summoned by the North Block regarding the glitches. The last meeting took place on June 22 when Infosys gave an assurance that it would address all issues in a time-bound manner.

However, the problem persists, prompting the Ministry to summon the top brass again.

At the earnings conference last month, Infosys COO Pravin Rao had said that fixing the glitches in the income tax department filing portal was its single biggest priority and that it was working towards solving the issues with the department.

“We have added more bandwidth. We have invested (more) leadership (time). I assure you that is the single largest priority for us today, and we are hopeful of addressing the issue,” Rao said. In 2019, Infosys had won a ₹4,242-crore contract to develop the new income tax filing portal, out of which ₹164.5 crore has been paid till June. After a litany of complaints from the users, Sitharaman decided to seek an explanation from the IT services major and asked it to resolve the issues immediately. While claiming that some progress had been made in resolving the issue, Pravin Rao admitted [at the earnings conference] that there was still some way to go. He said many of the issues raised around performance and stability had been addressed with a reset.

Experience with GST portal

This is not the first time that Infosys is having such problems with government websites.

Earlier, there were a lot of issues with the GST portal as well.

In March last year, Nilekani, the non-Executive Chairman of the company, made a detailed presentation before the GST Council and presented a timeline for better services, including for new facilities being introduced. The company had to face the ire of the government for problems with the website of the Corporate Affairs Ministry, too.

 

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