Indian Government Blaming Infosys For GST Network Glitches

Senior Government officials have expressed disappointment with the Infosys due to the technical glitches and issues in filing returns at GST Network (GSTN). In regard this, the government has to extend the deadlines for filing returns several times.

“It has been a disappointing experience”, officials said. By adding that, now the officials are expecting that to the improved service delivery of the GSTN portal as soon as possible. The company disagreed with that its work had been considered unsatisfactory. “The information you have received is completely inaccurate”, Infosys written in an email to ET.

On 30th October again the government has to extend the deadlines for filing GSTR- 2 returns for the month of July from 31st October to 30th November and also GSTR- 3 returns for the month of July from 10th November to 11th December. Previously, GSTR- 2 returns for the month of July was actually filed in August month, but its deadline has been extended by the government several times.

The government worrisome about that the Infosys is taking enough time to solve issues, respond or come up with solutions to problems. “While the long-term problem we face is inculcating a culture of tax compliance, the short-term problem is on account of Infosys,” said official.

The government senior finance ministry officials have been continuously interacting with the Infosys Top Management, including both former CEO Vishal Sikka and newly appointed Nandan Nilekani. The government addressed its problems to them related to the GSTN system, help to solve technical issues as soon as possible.The GSTN functioning issue was addressed on 9th September in GST Council Meeting held in Hyderabad, chaired by Group of Ministers (GoM) under Bihar Finance Minister, Sushil K Modi.

An official said, “They (Infosys) should have been more responsive.” The government is expecting that GSTN functioning system will be improved with the help of high- level GoM. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has organized a meeting to take advice from the stakeholder’s ways to improve GSTN functioning system on 1st November in Patna.

Infosys said that Working Hard to Solve the Technical Glitches

The company said in an email, “Given the complex nature of the project and rapid change management, there have been several stakeholder concerns that have also been raised”. By adding that, “Some of our finest engineers are supporting the GSTN team as they work towards resolving these and serving all stakeholders.”

Trade bodies and several taxpayers have addressed the problems being faced by them in filing returns at GSTN portal. Some of the problems of GSTN functioning system are website slow down, generating error messages and crashing. A trader said, “This has led to restlessness among the businessmen… A small businessman can’t spend so much time on the filing of returns.”

Infosys has given assurance to the GoM that they will expand its team to solve the technical issues of GSTN system but the officials said that they want positive results as soon as possible. “They have speeded up things… They have deployed additional manpower,” he told ET. “We must also remember that GST is a big change from earlier tax system of VAT… Besides, the council has also made changes that had to be reflected in the software.”

Infosys said that the GSTN Portal has Performed Well

“Infosys is very proud to be associated with the prestigious GST project which is the largest tax project of its kind in the world,” the company said. “The system has already demonstrated success across several parameters — till date 37 crore invoices have been uploaded to the system while the system is designed to handle 300 to 320 crore invoices every month. Seventy lakh taxpayers have successfully migrated to the new system and the country has recorded 25 lakh, newly registered taxpayers.”

Infosys said that after the implementation of GST, central and state- level levies have been unified with seven Union Territories and 29 states into one single regime. Additionally, the GSTN portal is capable to manage the load of 100,000 active users in last two days of filing GST returns for the month of July. Half of the filings were collected in that timeframe and remaining 70 percent of the collections were achieved with just only 25% of server utilization, demonstrating the system’s ability to manage scale.

“Any large project of this scale, especially a transformative one like this has to deal with changes in both policy and stakeholder usability,” the company said. “Some of these modifications have resulted in rapid changes to the system particularly due to its integration with heterogeneous IT ecosystems including GST Suvidha Providers, Aadhaar, CBEC, and Model 1states.”