Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Wednesday, 1 July 2026 congratulated citizens and taxpayers across the country on the completion of nine years of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), calling it the foundation of transparency, simplicity, and new momentum in India's economy. She credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's guidance for strengthening the spirit of cooperative federalism through the unified tax regime.

Context

Posting in Hindi on the occasion of GST's ninth anniversary, CM Gupta wrote: 'एक राष्ट्र, एक कर' ('One nation, one tax') — the defining slogan under which GST was conceived and launched. She extended greetings to all taxpayers who she said have contributed to national progress, and described an economy strengthened through GST as playing a 'significant role' in advancing the vision of a Viksit Bharat (Developed India).

GST was rolled out on 1 July 2017 in a midnight session at the Central Hall of Parliament, replacing a web of central and state levies including excise duty, service tax, and value-added tax. The 101st Constitutional Amendment Act of 2016 had cleared the legal path for the unified indirect tax framework.

Policy Backdrop

GST operates through the GST Council, a constitutional body comprising the Union Finance Minister and state finance ministers, which decides rates, exemptions, and rule changes by consensus. This structure institutionalised a form of cooperative federalism rarely seen in Indian fiscal policy, requiring centre and states to negotiate and agree before any change takes effect.

Over nine years, successive administrations have pointed to rising GST collections as evidence of improved tax compliance and the formalisation of supply chains driven by digital invoicing and e-way bills. The tax has also been credited with reducing the cascading effect of multiple levies that previously inflated the cost of goods and services.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries of a simplified tax structure have been traders, manufacturers, and small businesses that previously navigated dozens of overlapping state and central levies. State governments were guaranteed compensation for revenue shortfalls in the transition years, a provision that itself became a source of political negotiation between the centre and opposition-ruled states.

For consumers, the consolidation of taxes brought greater price transparency, though critics have long argued that the multi-slab rate structure — ranging from zero to 28 per cent — preserved much of the complexity GST was meant to eliminate. The question of including petroleum products within the GST net remains unresolved and continues to be debated in GST Council meetings.

What's Next

The GST Council's next meeting is expected to take up rate rationalisation proposals that have been under deliberation for several rounds, with a focus on merging the 12 per cent and 18 per cent slabs to simplify compliance further. Any legislative amendments arising from these decisions may be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament. CM Gupta's post, framed around Viksit Bharat, signals that the BJP intends to keep GST's ninth anniversary as a political and economic milestone in the run-up to that legislative calendar.