GST India's New “Tryst With Destiny”

India woke up to a well publicised roll out of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on July 1. GST proposes to make ‘one India and one tax’. We look at India’s transport and logistics sector’s tryst with this ‘good and simple tax’.

- Reji John

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to new…” That is an extract from the “tryst with destiny” speech delivered by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, to the Indian Constituent Assembly in The Parliament, on the eve of India's independence, towards midnight on 15 August 1947. 70 years later towards midnight on 30 June 2017 India once again made a tryst with destiny stepping out from the old to new. This time it was the official launch of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the most sweeping tax reform for nearly 70 years.

President of India Pranab Mukherjee launched the new indirect tax regime at the stroke of midnight in the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues and major industry leaders in a special function held at Indian Parliament’s Central Hall.

Prime Minister Modi termed GST, effective from July 1, as a ‘Good and Simple Tax’ and said its introduction was not just a tax or economic reform, but a social reform that would nudge people on the path to honesty and benefit the poor the most.

After 14 years of struggle to enlist the support of India’s states, the GST replaces more than a dozen union and state levies and unify a country of 1.3 billion people into one of the world’s biggest common markets.