Infosys gets time till September 15 to get the income tax portal right

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressed “deep disappointment” over the glitches that continue to bedevil the income tax e-filing portal and ordered software provider Infosys to fix all issues by September 15.

She issued the deadline at a meeting with Infosys chief executive Salil Parekh on Monday.

The tech company hasn’t been able to sort out problems with the site even two months after the delayed launch of the portal. The IT services provider said it would resolve all issues within a few weeks.


Sitharaman said the company needed to devote more resources and step up efforts so the much-delayed delivery of agreed services is ensured, according to a statement issued by the finance ministry.

Meetings with FinMin, CBDT
“The finance minister demanded that the issues faced by taxpayers on current functionalities of the portal should be resolved by the team by 15th September so taxpayers and professionals can work seamlessly on the portal,” the ministry said.

Parekh was told about the difficulties that taxpayers were facing and the problems arising from the delays caused. The Infosys chief executive said he and his team were doing everything to ensure the smooth functioning of the portal. “Over 750 team members are working on this project and Mr Pravin Rao, chief operating officer of Infosys, is personally overseeing this project. Mr Parekh also assured that Infosys is working expeditiously to ensure a glitch-free experience to taxpayers on the portal,” said the finance ministry.

Following the meeting, senior company executives held discussions with officials in the finance ministry and the Central Board of Direct Taxes to iron out problems being faced by taxpayers on the portal, said people aware of the matter.

The Infosys CEO had been summoned by Sitharaman after the income tax returns e-filing portal built by the Bengaluru-based company was inaccessible since Saturday. It came back online only late on Sunday.

Dogged by Glitches

Since the portal went live on June 8, taxpayers have faced technical glitches, errors and challenges in accessing the portal or several functions within the website, drawing their ire as well as that of the finance ministry.

On Sunday evening, Infosys tweeted that the portal — down for maintenance over the weekend — was operational again for users. “The emergency maintenance of the @IncomeTaxIndia portal has concluded and the portal is live. We regret any inconvenience caused to taxpayers,” Infosys said.

On Saturday, Infosys tweeted that the portal was inaccessible due to “planned maintenance,” which it changed to “emergency maintenance” on Sunday morning.

The finance minister and officials from the Department of Revenue had a detailed interaction with the company’s top brass to resolve the matter earlier as well. The meeting, which included tax practitioners, highlighted several glitches with regard to services on the e-filing portal’s 2.0 version.

These included its slow loading speed, absence of previously saved forms of earlier assessment years, digital signature certificates not getting updated, tedious filing of tax deducted at source (TDS) returns, slow downloading of ITR forms and issues with information on the TDS that had been deducted. Filing of income tax forms for deducting tax on payments made to non-residents was also problematic.

Infosys reiterated its commitment to fixing issues in a timely manner during its 40th annual general meeting held on June 19.

In January 2019, Infosys emerged as the lowest bidder for the ₹4,242 crore contract for the integrated e-filing and central processing centre project, to be deployed and managed for about nine years. So far, the government has paid Infosys ₹164.5 crore for the project, minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary told Parliament last month.

Soon after the portal went live in June, Sitharaman had tweeted, tagging Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani, pointing to complaints from several users on her Twitter timeline. Nilekani responded that it had observed some ‘Day One’ technical issues and expressed regret for the inconvenience caused to taxpayers.