'Six visits for a password reset': Bengaluru founder highlights confusion in public portals

India’s rise in global ease of doing business rankings may look impressive on paper, but for entrepreneurs working through real-life government portals, the experience is far more complicated.

Govardhan Reddy, a Bengaluru-based startup founder, recently took to LinkedIn to highlight what many business owners quietly face every day — navigating multiple online government systems that don’t always work together.

In a post titled "What’s Wrong with India’s Portals?", Reddy shared how a simple password reset on Karnataka’s PTO-007 portal led to six visits to government offices and still didn’t get resolved.

But the issue, he points out, goes far beyond one portal. Across major platforms — PAN, Aadhaar, GST, Passport — each follows its own set of rules on how names are entered and stored, leading to mismatches and endless paperwork.

“PAN wants First Name, Middle Name, Last Name. Aadhaar says Surname, Middle Name, Last Name. GST has its own logic. Passport? God only knows what they’re asking,” Reddy writes.

He also points to how regional differences in naming conventions add to the confusion. “First Name” in North India often means something different in South India, where initials are common.

The real challenge, Reddy says, is a lack of coordination between departments. “PAN says surname starts from the fifth character. Aadhaar disagrees. Banks and businesses struggle to reconcile these differences, and entrepreneurs spend months trying to fix basic mismatches,” he explains.

Calling for a practical solution, Reddy suggests bringing together all key departments — PAN, Aadhaar, GST, Income Tax, Passport, Banks — to agree on one naming standard.

“One India, One Naming Convention, Zero Chaos,” he says. “Entrepreneurs need clear systems that work together — not months of back and forth over a name.”