The body of work—Constitutional provisions, laws, rules, schedules, procedures and processes—of 30 governments over 15 years which culminated in the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) has been on the ground now for seven fortnights.
While less than 100 days is very early in the day to pass any judgement on the Indian GST experiment, or make sense of revenue numbers that are coming, a quick list of big wins and losses can be put together.
The big unqualified win is the emergence of the GST Council as India’s first federal institution; genuinely federal and fully functional. In the last 70 years, despite repeated efforts, no federal institution has emerged. Be it the Finance Commission, Planning Commission or its new avtaar, the NITI Aayog, or even the Inter-State Council.
