FM Nirmala Sitharaman: Technical Issues In New IT Portal To Be Fixed Soon

Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union Finance Minister, stated on Monday that the new Income Tax Portal which is under the development stage by the IT giant Infosys will be completely restored in the coming days. She went on to say in her statement that "I have been reminding Infosys which developed the new portal constantly, and Co-founder of Infosys Nandan Nilekani has been messaging me with assurances that in the next couple of days they will sort out the majority of problems," according to the Times of India.

From the day of its debut on 7 June, the new income tax e-filing platform 'www.incometax.gov.in' had a difficult initiation due to technical issues. On June 8-2021, Nandan Nilekani had said that "The new e-filing portal will ease the filing process and enhance the end-user experience. 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 stabilize during the week."

But as of now, the new IT portal is all set to be fixed against the ongoing glitches within a couple of days according to the FM after confirming with Nandan Nilekani and Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj. On June 8 Nirmala Sitharaman had said regarding the glitches that "The much awaited e-filing portal 2.0 was launched last night 20:45hrs. I see in my TL grievances and glitches. Hope Infosys & @NandanNilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided. Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority."

Throughout January 2019 and June 2021, the Centre has compensated Infosys a total of Rs 164.5 crore to fix the glitches in the new Income Tax Portal.

As an important note for taxpayers seeking refunds, the Income Tax Department has recently said that "CBDT issues refunds of over Rs. 47,318 crore to more than 22.61 lakh taxpayers between 1st April 2021 to 09th August 2021. Income tax refunds of Rs. 14,241 crore have been issued in 21,38,375 cases & corporate tax refunds of Rs. 33,078 crore have been issued in 1,22,511 cases."