Corp affairs ministry site remains glitchy
Bengaluru, June 10, 2023
Company secretary Gaurav Pingle’s computer screen looked like a screensaver with an astronaut in space. But a closer look showed it was an error message from MCA21, the corporate affairs ministry’s website, when he tried to upload some forms. Now, two days after raising a complaint, he still hasn’t found a resolution.
Company law professionals like Pingle continue to face issues with the MCA site, which is now managed by IT services company LTIMindtree. TOI had highlighted the problems in March. But even now, three months later, and despite assurances from Nirmala Sitharaman, the finance and corporate affairs minister, the site has not stabilised. Pingle says finance professionals like him are trying such techniques as changing the password and clearing the cache to get the site to work properly. In some cases it works, in others it doesn’t.
Earlier, company and limited liability partnership (LLP) incorporation took 10 to 15 days. Now, users say, it takes more than a month.
Users say that from registering a company to uploading digital signatures of directors and submitting annual financial statements —all are getting delayed. A global management consulting and strategy advisory firm that works with global capability centres of foreign firms says due to these delays, they have stopped giving clients a timeline to register or incorporate the firm. The consulting firm, which requested that they not be named for this story, said all their global customers have been affected, and they perceive itas India’s slowness. “That experience stayed with them, and they keep recalling it,” the firm said.
One user tweeted that when he clicks on any part of the portal, the page goes back to the login page. In his case, even efforts like clearing the cache have not helped. Another user said she was not able to download any document from the site.
These glitches have been a problem for the CA and CScommunity for a year now. The problems began when MCA and LTIMindtree moved to a new version of the portal, called Version 3 or V3. Initially, the new version was operational for LLP companies, but earlier this year, it was opened up for all firms. The finance ministry has been assuring companies for months that glitches would be resolved, but little has changed. Asked about the problems, LTIMindtree did not directly address the issue, but said that over 1. 4 lakh LLP Form 11 annual filings for FY24 on the MCA portal have been completed successfully. It said over 62,000 new company registrations (including foreign companies) have been done since launch of the company forms in January and around 8,000 Form 15 have also been filed on the portal “seamlessly. ”
[The Times of India]
