I am trying to compile a .ts to .js

I have tsconfig.json as below

{
"compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es5",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "outFile": "build/test.js"
},
"exclude": [
    "node_modules"
    ]
}

below is my package.json

{
    "name": "test",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "description": "",
    "main": "index.js",
    "scripts": {
        "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
    },
    "author": "",
    "license": "ISC",
    "dependencies": {
        "tsc": "^1.20150623.0",
        "typescript": "^2.4.2"
    }
}

and the auto generated tasks.json looks like below

{
// See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
// for the documentation about the tasks.json format
"version": "2.0.0",
"tasks": [
    {
        "type": "typescript",
        "tsconfig": "tsconfig.json",
        "problemMatcher": [
            "$tsc"
        ],
        "group": {
            "kind": "build",
            "isDefault": true
        }
    }]
}

When I try to run the build task, I am getting the below error

Executing task: \node_modules\.bin\tsc.cmd  -p "\tsconfig.json" <

error TS5014: Failed to parse file '/tsconfig.json/tsconfig.json': Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0.

Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

What I am doing wrong? Please, note I have added the versions in package.json