Expect system to stabilise this week: Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani on the income tax portal glitch

A day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman flagged technical glitches on the income tax department’s new e-filing website, IT major Infosys said it expects the system to stabilise in the course of this week.

On Tuesday, Sitharaman had asked Infosys and its Chairman Nandan Nilekani to fix technical glitches being encountered on the income tax department’s new e-filing website, after users flooded her Twitter timeline with complaints.

“Our teams are making progress to address the technical issues. We expect the system to stabilize in the course of this week,” Infosys said in a tweet on Wednesday.

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.

While Sitharaman took to Twitter to announce the launch of the new portal on Tuesday morning, her timeline was soon 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 had tweeted later. TL here stands for timeline.

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 had tweeted.

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