India government on Monday said that it paid Rs 164.5 crore to IT services provider Infosys to develop and manage the controversial Income Tax e-filing portal.
India’s Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, said that the government has launched a new income tax e-filing portal as part of the Integrated E-filing and Centralised Processing Centre 2.0 Project.
Union Cabinet gave its approval on January 16, 2019 for this project at an outlay of Rs 4,241.97 crore for a total period of 8.5 years, including payout to the Managed Service Provider (MSP), GST, rent, postage and project management cost.
“Since January 2019 till June 2021, the total amount paid to Infosys is Rs 164.5 crore under this project,” Pankaj Chaudhary said.
Taxpayers, tax professionals and other stakeholders have reported glitches in the functioning of the new portal, regarding issues experienced by tax payers pertain to slowness of the portal, non-availability of certain functionalities or technical issues in functionalities.
The minister said that the Income Tax Department is continuously engaged with Infosys to expedite the resolution of any pending issues.
Some of the initial issues experienced by tax payers regarding slowness of the portal, non-availability of certain functionalities or technical issues in functionalities have been mitigated. The Department is taking corrective measures, through Infosys, based on feedback from taxpayers, tax professionals and representatives of the ICAI, he said.
