New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India’s biggest tax reform in its 70-year history, as businesses and citizens across the country steeled themselves for the economic turmoil that’s expected to follow.
The new goods and services tax was formally ushered in at a late-night session of Parliament, reminiscent of the midnight meeting presided over by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, on the eve of the country’s independence in 1947.
“GST marks the economic integration of India,” Modi said in his speech to current and former lawmakers, business leaders and central bank officials in the parliament’s packed central hall. “There are 500 taxes and we are getting rid of it. From Ganganagar to Itanagar and Leh to Lakshadweep, it is one nation, one tax.”
But amid the euphoria, President Pranab Mukherjee also offered some words of caution. “GST is a disruptive change, no doubt,” he told the gathering. “When a change of this magnitude is undertaken, however positive it may be, there are bound to be some teething troubles and difficulties in the initial stage.”
First proposed in 2006, the GST subsumes more than a dozen state and central levies into one tax, unifying 29 states and 1.28 billion people into a single market for the first time.
It’s expected to expand India’s narrow tax base and increase government revenues. It has been heralded by economists and will count as the most important economic reform of Modi’s three-year-old administration.
Evan as the tax was launched, shoppers were lining up to take advantage of potential offers.
