When the new Goods and Services tax was introduced, its backers called it a new model of “cooperative federalism”. Much praise was lavishe...
When the new Goods and Services tax was introduced, its backers called it a new model of “cooperative federalism”. Much praise was lavished along the same lines on the GST Council, a body of finance ministers of the states and Union government that would now decide indirect taxes for Indians, instead of their elected lawmakers doing so.
From “India’s first truly federal institution” to an “embodiment of pooled sovereignty”, the creation of the GST Council was lauded as a breakthrough in how the Indian Union organises itself.
So convincing were these arguments for some that suggestions to create new institutions using the template of the GST council started to circulate almost immediately after the new tax was introduced.
In 2018, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley mooted the idea of bodies along the lines of the GST council to manage healthcare, rural development and agriculture.
In 2019, the Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Bibek Debroy called for one on public expenditure. In 2020, the Reserve Bank of India suggested GST Council-like bodies to manage land, labour and power.
Did the actual functioning of the GST council match up to these lofty projections?
Rocky road
GST, introduced in July 2017, was intended to simplify India’s complex tax regime by putting a range of Union and state...
