GST turns one: Leaving the birth pangs behind, it learns how to walk

GST was launched at midnight on July 1, 2017 having missed successive deadlines, over seven years after it was originally scheduled to be introduced

After 17 years of debate, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) came into effect all over India, this day, an year ago (1 July 2017). 

The formation of the new indirect tax regime, that subsumed more than a dozen central and state levies, started way back in 2000 when the then prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, set up a committee headed by then finance minister of West Bengal, Asim Dasgupta, to design a GST model.

What followed was years of consultations and debates between the union government and states to build a consensus about this mega reform. There was strong