New Delhi, 29 June (IANS). Every year in India, July 1 is considered ‘GST Day’. On the same day, eight years ago in 2017, a Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented in the country’s biggest tax reforms.
GST was implemented by the Modi government under the ease of trade in the country. In this, various taxes levied by the state governments and the central government were imposed under GST, so that the rules are easily complied with and the traders can easily run their business by paying a tax instead of different taxes.
GST was implemented in 2017, but the idea of bringing it first came in the year 2000. At that time a committee was formed to prepare a draft of GST law. In 2004, the committee submitted its report to the government. Two years later, in his 2006 budget speech, the then Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram announced to implement GST across the country in 2010, but it could not be implemented due to differences between the states and the central government over its provisions.
Then after the Modi government came in 2014, this bill was faster and the GST bill was approved by Parliament in May 2015. This was followed by the first meeting of the GST Council in September 2016 and on 1 July 2017 it was implemented across the country.
The purpose of implementing GST was to implement the idea of ’one country-one market-one tax’ in the country. With the implementation of GST, many other taxes like service tax, VAT, Purchas Tax, Excise Duty, Entertainment Tax were abolished. However, still alcohol, petroleum products and stump duty are kept free from GST and the old tax system applies to them.
After the implementation of GST, the country’s tax collection has also progressed rapidly. A total of Rs 20.18 lakh crore GST was collected in FY 24 and during this time the average GST collection was Rs 1.68 lakh crore. At the same time, this figure was Rs 11.37 lakh crore in FY1 21 and during this time the average GST collection was Rs 0.94 lakh crore.
In May 2025, the GST collection was Rs 2.01 lakh crore, which was 16.4 percent more than the 1.72 lakh crore rupees in May 2024.
-IANS
ABS/