Nandan Nilekani Responds After Nirmala Sitharaman Flags New Tax Site Glitches

Responding to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's tweet about technical snags in the revamped income tax portal, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani said his company "regrets these initial glitches" and the system will stabilise in a few days.

"The new e-filing portal will ease the filing process and enhance end user experience. Nirmala Sitharaman Ji, we have observed some technical issues on day one, and are working to resolve them. Infosys regrets these initial glitches and expects the system to stabilise during the week," Mr Nilekani tweeted.

The new e-filing portal will ease the filing process and enhance end user experience. @nsitharaman ji, we have observed some technical issues on day one, and are working to resolve them. @Infosys regrets these initial glitches and expects the system to stabilise during the week. https://t.co/LocRBPCzpP

— Nandan Nilekani (@NandanNilekani) June 8, 2021

Infosys, one of the biggest information-technology companies in the world, has developed the next-generation income tax filing portal, which is expected to reduce the processing time for tax returns.

The new URL of the tax filing website, https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home, replaced the long-existing http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in, and it went live at 8:45 pm yesterday.

However, users have been complaining of technical glitches in the platform. Many of them had tagged the screenshots of the malfunctioning website to the official Twitter account of Ms Sitharaman.

The Finance Minister tweeted the grievance to Mr Nilekani, who is known for spearheading mega government projects like Aadhaar.

"The much-awaited e-filing portal 2.0 was launched last night 20:45hrs. I see in my TL grievances and glitches. Hope Infosys Nandan Nilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided. Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority," she wrote.

The much awaited e-filing portal 2.0 was launched last night 20:45hrs.

I see in my TL grievances and glitches.

Hope @Infosys & @NandanNilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided.

Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority. https://t.co/iRtyKaURLc

— Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) June 8, 2021

The Central Board of Direct Taxes had said the new portal will expedite the processing of tax returns, will consolidate all interactions and uploads or pending actions on a single dashboard and will give the ability to the taxpayers to update their profiles with income details which will be used to pre-fill their tax forms.

Infosys had also developed the central government's Goods and Services Tax Network portal through which businesses across the country file their GST returns.