FM meeting with CMD of Infosys, Deal cancellation likely?
The Ministry of Finance has summoned Shri Salil Parekh, MD & CEO, Infosys on 23/08/2021 to explain to Hon’ble FM as to why even after 2.5 months since launch of new e-filing portal, glitches in the portal have not been resolved. In fact, since 21/08/2021 the portal itself is not available.
This is the time when the Hon’ble FM Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman who has a clean and non – corrupt image to take the final call to cancel the deal with Infosys. Admittedly, the old portal was working exceedingly well considering the new portal. Besides, the old portal was time tested and there was no need for a new portal and for spending Rs. 4242 Cr for the new income tax portal.
It may be noted that the contract was allotted much earlier and Infosys has taken the time of 1st June to 7th June for transforming the data from old portal to the new portal. Even despite 2 ½ months, the portal is not showing the sign of improvement or betterment.
By cancelling the new deal with Infosys, Hon’ble FM may convey the message that the Government cannot tolerate any mischief in delivering the quality services. So far, around Rs. 165 Cr only is paid by the Government to Infosys and cancellation of the deal would also result in saving of around Rs. 4000 Cr for the Government.
The country knows it very well that Infosys has failed miserably in handling the GST portal as well. Giving the income tax portal to the same person looks one of the biggest blunders. This is a very high time for income tax return and the income tax portal is not working at such peak hours.
Publicly, Infosys has announced that around 1 lakh ITRs were filed till 21st June 2021 on New Income Tax E-filing Portal whereas RTI application shows that the Government does not have any data of return filed?
Though the announcement of a new income tax portal was done much earlier and the working was stopped from 1st June to 7th June as the Government wanted to move to the new portal, could this be the result?
The questions were also raised as to why so much hurry to launch the new portal? Why was homework not required before scraping the old portal? Why do we have to follow the trial and error approach at the National Level? Despite around 75 days of stoppage, the issue still remains where it has started?
The simple solution as of now is to just restore the old one and cancel the new deal with Infosys. It will be a welcome move if the Government announces that the new portal has been scrapped and the old portal is restored. Taxpayers of the country would welcome the move of the Government to scrap the new portal.
The RTI application has further revealed that the Government has not imposed any penalty on Infosys for Its poor & disastrous performance in website maintenance and implementation.
Taxpayers also wanted to know whether penalty or fine is meant only for small taxpayers?
It was a well-known fact that Infosys has failed miserably in the implementation of the GST portal, then why did they again assign the task of New income tax portal to Infosys? There were other competent players as well who may have been considered for the purpose.
This is the time to recognize the original developer of income tax portal www.incometaxefiling.gov.in. Indeed, the original developer deserves kudos and needs to be recognized for designing and giving such a hassle free portal to the country.
By scrapping the new proposed portal, the Government may give a signal that the Modi Government doesn’t tolerate any nuisances in the tax administration. Not only Infosys, all those who were involved in the process need to be penalized severely for ill-conceived ideas and implementation. Let the finance ministry act tough and hard against the persons who have made the country suffer for such an act of gross negligence.
It’s time for the Government to come clean by scrapping the proposal to move to the new income tax portal.
