Some users said that they were unable to log into both existing as well as the new portal, literally shutting them out of the system where they can access income tax returns, tax filing utilities that can be used offline besides other tools.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pulled up
, the technology provider for the new portal, asking the company and its co-founder Nandan Nilekani to not let taxpayers down.
“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,” Sitharaman said in a Twitter post.
“Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority,” she highlighted.
Till nearly 5 pm in the evening, the taxpayers continued experiencing issues. While some were getting logged out despite logging in, others who who were able to log in to the new IT portal after several attempts pointed to unavailability of 26AS downloads and poor navigation.
“Taxpayers were promised a new and improved version of income tax portal but they are yet to find even access to the new site. This should be a matter of serious concern for the government,” said Rajat Mohan, senior partner at AMRG Associates.
Some users even compared the glitches being faced to that of the GSTN portal which is also serviced by Infosys and has been riddled with technical issues since launch years ago. The government had pulled up the GSTN service providers last year, highlighting more than a dozen technical issues and sought for immediate ramping up of the user load the site could take at any time.
