We all hold governments responsible for all the mess around us, forgetting our own role in society and that of business establishments, that are also part of our daily life.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted about technical snags in the revamped income tax portal tagging Nandan Nilekani of Infosys Technologies. Infosys, one of the biggest information-technology companies in the world, has developed the next-generation income tax filing portal, which is expected to reduce the processing time for tax returns. Nilekani has expressed regrets and promised to stabilize the system.

With this tweet that tagged Nilekani, the finance minister changed the perspective of the public about the government’s intent and our inbuilt bias towards government work. 

A private entity like Infosys is equally responsible for the smooth functioning of the tax filing platform as it constructed the portal. Similarly, let us hold ourselves responsible for the mess around us, be it vaccination, hospital infrastructure or the quality of education in India. Each one of us can improve the system and contribute to India. 

For the record here is the tax filing portal’s episode: 

The new URL of the tax filing website, https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home, replaced the long-existing http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in, and it went live at 8:45 pm on June 7. However, users have been complaining of technical glitches on the platform. Many of them had tagged the screenshots of the malfunctioning website to the official Twitter account of Ms. Sitharaman.

The finance minister tweeted the grievance to Nilekani. “The much-awaited e-filing portal 2.0 was launched last night at 20:45hrs. I see in my TL grievances and glitches. Hope Infosys Nandan Nilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided. Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority,” she wrote.

Responding to the finance minister’s tweet about technical snags in the revamped income tax portal, Nilekani said his company “regrets these initial glitches” and the system will stabilize in a few days.

“The new e-filing portal will ease the filing process and enhance the user experience. Nirmala Sitharaman Ji, we have observed some technical issues on day one, and are working to resolve them. Infosys regrets these initial glitches and expects the system to stabilize during the week,” Mr. Nilekani tweeted.

Infosys had also developed the central government’s Goods and Services Tax Network portal through which businesses across the country file their GST returns