Finance ministry summons Infosys CEO on IT portal issue. Image Courtesy – News4Readers
The IT portal of the Income Tax Department ‘www.incometax.gov.in’ has been malfunctioning since its launch on June 7, 2021. Income taxpayers are having problems using the portal since the beginning. The Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has summoned Salil Parekh, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Infosys on the IT portal issue, to explain why it was happening. Parekh has to attend the Finance Department on Monday, August 23. He will explain to Nirmala why the e-filing portal is malfunctioning.
The finance ministry said in a tweet on Sunday that the e-filing portal was launched two and a half months ago. Even after all this time, its various problems have not been solved. The finance minister will ask the chief executive of Infosys why the portal is not working smoothly. According to the Ministry of Finance, the portal has not been working at all since August 21.
The new e-filing portal was launched on June 7 for the convenience of income taxpayers. The responsibility was given to Infosys, a technology giant, in January 2019 to develop the website. But many times the portal could not be accessed. There were more problems with the portal.
On June 22, the finance ministry called Infosys officials to find out why this was happening. They were also asked for advice on how to solve the problem, whether to seek the help of another IT company. At that meeting, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India said that tax professionals like income taxpayers are also having problems with the portal.
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Infosys was awarded the contract by the government of India to develop the next-generation income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns. In this process, the finance department of India has paid Rs 164.5 crore to Infosys to develop the IT portal.
Infosys had also developed the GST Network portal of the government. This portal is used for GST payment and return filing. The software major faced several complaints about the slow functioning of the GST portal.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “I have told Infosys several times about the problems of the portal. The head of the company Nandan Nilekani has assured me that everything will be fine in the next two-three weeks.”
State Minister for Finance Pankaj Chowdhury told the Lok Sabha during the Monsoon session of Parliament last month that the government has given Rs 164.5 crore to Infosys to develop the portal between January 2019 and June 2021. In a written reply to another question in the Lok Sabha, the state finance minister said that Infosys had been informed of the bugs in the portal. The portal is working slowly, and also some services are not available.
