CA mocks Narayana Murthy’s ‘work 70 hours’ advice to youngsters: ‘Ask Infosys team to run income tax portal smoothly…’

CA mocks Narayana Murthy: A Chartered Accountant has taken to social media site X (formerly known as Twitter), to criticise Narayana Murthy and his company Infosys for apparent interruptions with the Income-Tax (I-T) filing portal.

Identified as Basu (@Basappamv) on his X profile, which mentions that he is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the CA used the opportunity to mock Murthy for his "work 70 hours" advise to young Indians.

"Narayana Murthy Saar, on your advice we, tax professionals started to work more than 70 Hours per week. Ask your Infosys team to work at least one hour per week to smoothly run the Income tax portal. Thanks in Advance," Basu wrote.

NR Narayana Murthy co-founded Infosys and stepped down as Chairman of the information technology major in 2011 after 30 years.

IT Portal Lapses

In a report, Moneycontrol quoted CA professionals sharing that they faced delays and lags while using the I-T portal, and downloading documents such as the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Tax Information Statement (TIS).

“We have been facing difficulty in accessing the AIS and TIS for many clients due to the delay caused by the functionality of the tax-filing portal server,” Ahmedabad-based CA Raju Shah added in the report.

They blamed technical glitches on the portal as one of the reasons for “adverse” delay in filing ITR for taxpayers. The ICAI has also formally raised the issue of technical problems with the Joint Secretary of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), BusinessToday reported.

“There is a general delay in filing tax returns this year,” said Mayank Mohanka, founder director and partner at TaxAaram India told MC.

‘Work 70 Hours’ Draws Ire

Murthy was widely criticised in October last year, for suggesting that young Indians should extend their work hours to at least 70 per week to be productive.

Speaking on the first episode of 3one4 Capital’s podcast ‘The Record’, the businessman expressed concern about India's work productivity and noted that it was one of the lowest in the world. He thus advised that youngsters in India should work for a minimum of 70 hours per week if the country wanted to compete with emerging economies.

“Somehow our youth has the habit of taking not-so-desirable habits from the West, and then… not helping the country. India's work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity, unless we reduce corruption in the government at some level, because we have been reading I don't know the truth of it, unless we reduce the delays in our bureaucracy in taking this decision, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress. So therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, this is my country, I’d like to work 70 hours a week,” Murthy said.

The billionaire tech founder made similar comments in an interview with a news channel four years ago, when he suggested that youngsters should put in 60 hours per week for the next two to three years in order to revive the Indian economy.

Among fellow businesspeople, Murthy's views drew polarised reactions, with some wholeheartedly agreeing and others opposing the thought, assering that quality of work is more valuable than putting in more hours.