RAJYA SABHA
MALFUNCTIONING OF GST AND OTHER TAX FILING WEBSITES
Will the Minister of Finance be pleased to State:
(a) whether it is a fact that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and other tax filing related websites have crashed multiple times during last one year;
(b) if so, the details of instances of non-functioning of these websites reported in the last one year;
(c) the details of steps undertaken to improve the functioning of tax filing websites in the last one year; and
(d) the number of officials who have been punished for such non-functioning of the websites in the last one year?
(SMT. NIRMALA SITHARAMAN)
(a) to (d): A Statement is laid on the table of the House.
Statement as referred to in reply to Starred Question No. *78 to be answered on 9th February, 2021 in Rajya Sabha on the subject malfunctioning of GST and other tax filing websites. Part-Wise reply to the subject Parliamentary Question is as under:
(a) There are no instances of multiple crashes of tax filing websites operated by Income Tax Department, Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax and the GSTN during last one year.
(b) Nil in view of reply to part a.
(c) The following steps have been undertaken to improve the functioning of tax filing websites during the last one year:
Income Tax (incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in)
- Ensuring adequate hardware/server infrastructure and Internet bandwidth to ensure sufficient capacity during peak period.
- Proactive Monitoring: Ongoing hourly sanity checks of 15 vital system functions for monitoring.
- Additional back-up capacity kept on stand-by in case of any requirement.
- Testing of performance of website infrastructure to test availability of sufficient capacity for peak filing.
- Ensuring coordination with UIDAI for prompt assistance in case of any problem reported regarding receipt of Aadhaar OTP.
- Setting up war room with technical experts and Income Tax Department officers to monitor website performance during peak period.
- 24/7 operations of the Network and security operations center team during peak period
- 24/7 operations of the E-filing call center to assist taxpayers during peak period and take feedback about any problems faced.
- Quick response on Social Media to any problem reported by taxpayers.
GSTN (gst.gov.in)
- Infrastructure enhancement to accommodate 1.5 crore active GST taxpayers.
- Performance enhancement to handle three lakh concurrent users on the GST Portal.
- Mandatory Performance testing (also called Load testing) of critical functionalities before deployment.
- Code improvement for critical functionalities to address performance bottlenecks, if any.
- Nil in view of reply to part (a).