Finance Ministry has summoned Infosys CEO Salil Parekh to explain why the income tax e-filing portal is still experiencing glitches 2.5 months after its launch
The income tax e-filing portal is now up and running after emergency maintenance, Infosys informed in a late evening tweet on Sunday. The portal, marred by glitches since its launch, has been inaccessible since August 21.
Infosys informed in afternoon today the tax website was down because of maintenance activities and it will post an update once it is functional. Around 9 PM tonight, it said that the emergency maintenance is done and the portal is working once again.
“The emergency maintenance of the @IncomeTaxIndia portal has concluded and the portal is live. We regret any inconvenience caused to taxpayers,” Infosys India Business unit tweeted.
Earlier today, Income Tax Department tweeted that the tax portal has been unavailable since August 21. In the same tweet, the tax department mentioned that the Ministry of Finance has summoned Infosys managing director and chief executive officer Salil Parekh on Monday over the issues being faced by the website.
Parekh has been asked to explain to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman why the tax filing website is still facing problems two and a half months after its launch. The portal was launched on June 7 to reduce the time taken tax filing process to one day and ease the issue of tax refunds.
As various glitches continued to pester taxpayers a fortnight after launch, Sitharaman had on June 22 called a meeting with key officials of Infosys to review the issues on the portal. The minister had then asked Infosys to promptly address all issues, improve their services, and redress grievances on priority as it was impacting taxpayers adversely.
At that time, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh and COO Pravin Rao, along with other company officials, had taken note of the issues highlighted by the stakeholders.
They had also acknowledged the technical issues in the functioning of the portal and shared the status of the resolution with respect to the issues highlighted by the stakeholders, as per an official statement issued after the meeting.
Infosys was awarded the contract to develop the next-generation income tax filing system in January 2019. Till June 2021, the government has paid ₹164.5 crore to Infosys for developing the portal, Finance Ministry had told the Parliament during the Monsoon session.
Source: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/income-tax-portal-now-online-after-emergency-maintenance-infosys-11629649196667.html
