New Tax Site Glitches: We Will Fix It, Nilekani Assures Sitharaman

Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani in a late evening reply to Union Finance Minister Sitharaman has said that his company is working to resolve the technical glitches being encountered on the income tax department's new e-filing website.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday had asked Infosys and Nilekani to fix the glitches after users flooded her Twitter timeline with complaints.

Infosys was in 2019 awarded a contract to develop the next-generation income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns from 63 days to one day and expedite refunds.

The portal went live on Monday evening.

Early on Tuesday morning, Sitharaman took to Twitter to announce the launch of the new portal www.incometax.gov.in, saying  the "important milestone to make the compliance experience more taxpayer-friendly" went live at 2045 hrs on Monday.

But soon, her timeline was flooded with user complaints.

"I see in my TL grievances and glitches. Hope @Infosys & @NandanNilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided," she tweeted later.

 "Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority," she said while quoting a tweet from a user who was unable to log in to the new e-filing portal.

In a late evening reply to Sitharaman's tweet, Nilekani said some technical issues were observed on day one, and Infosys is working to resolve them.

"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," Nilekani tweeted.

Infosys had also developed the GST Network (GSTN) portal, used for GST payment and return filing. The software major had faced flak for slow functioning of the GSTN portal.

(PTI)