In January 2019 the government announced that it has selected Infosys as its developer for next generation Income Tax Filing System. The cost of the project would be Rs. 4,242 crores. After Infosys failed to provide a good user experience in case of MCA (Ministry Of Corporate Affairs) website and GST, is the government inviting a disaster with handing it over this new project?
As per reports, Rs. 4,242 crore project to Infosys is to cut down the processing time for returns to one day from 63 days and expedite refund. The project is expected to be completed within 18 months and will be launched after three months of testing.
Infosys’ Failure In MCA Website
Back in 2014, Infosys had taken charge of the MCA website. But since then, the MCA’s website started cracking down under its watch. However, almost every other day, company secretaries (CS), chartered accountants (CAs), lenders and shareholders are crying harshly for not being able to access the site or perform mandatory filing.
Further, there are security issues as well with the MCA portal. The question is why can’t Infosys, one of India’s most reputed corporate houses, still fix the issue that it created? Why are users still facing several glitches for over three years, after Infosys took over management of the MCA portal?
In fact, even Amitabh Kant, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NITI Aayog, has blamed Infosys for the MCA malfunctioning. Here is a tweet from Mr Kant…
However, nothing changed on the MCA site, and it continues to give nightmares to stakeholders.
Infosys’ Failure In GST Website
In 2015, Infosys won the bid to develop India’s GST network system. But, after the GST’s launch users started facing issues. Like, too many and frequent glitches on GSTN portal, the GSTN system always slows down and has multiple errors. Due to errors and glitches, the government had to defer filing deadlines several times.
Then, in 2017, officials of the government stated that they are disappointed with the experience provided by Infosys. Several taxpayers including trade bodies have said the system is prone to slowing down to a crawl, generating error messages and crashing.
Even the Annual Return Filing process was extended to March 31, 2018 last year. Also, the GSTN is not ready with the system of annual returns.
Questions
Now the question is even after such big failures why has the Government of India selected Infosys for its next-generation Income Tax Filing System?
What if the next-generation Income Tax Filing System fails under Infosys?
Who will be held responsible?