Income Tax Site Glitches: Infosys had designed the new portal. (File)
The finance ministry has summoned Infosys chief Salil Parekh today to explain the continuing glitches in the new income tax e-filing portal, which has been in use since June. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had expressed concern over the issue earlier. Mr Parekh and senior executive Praveen Rao were asked to ensure that the portal is made "more humane and user-friendly", the finance ministry had said.
A tweet from the official Income Tax India handle today read: "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 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,"
Infosys had, earlier in the day, said that the portal is still under "maintenance". However, a later tweet said the site was live.
Infosys had designed the new portal, which was found to have several technical issues after it started service. Users flagged the issued, often tweeting screenshots of the site and tagging the finance minister.
The trouble areas included even simple tasks like profile updation or change of passwords. Many users also said the portal was extremely slow and logging in took considerable time.
Between January 2019 to June 2021, the government has paid Rs 164.5 crore to Infosys for developing the portal.
The software giant was asked to "address all issues without further loss of time, improve their services, redress grievances on priority as it was impacting taxpayers adversely", the ministry said.
So far, Nandan Nilekani, the non-executive chairman of Infosys, has been reporting to Ms Sitharaman on a weekly basis. Expressing regrets for the glitches, Mr Nilekani had said they would be resolved in a matter of days.
The trouble with the site has hampered users during e-filing of tax returns – especially crucial during the pandemic.