India Should Initiate GST With a Uniform Low Rate

One of the most reputed economist and policymaker, Vijay Kelkar, offered the fifth C.D. Deshmukh lecture organised by National Council of Applied Economic Research. Kelkar, while speaking upon Reflections on the Art and Science of policy making, introduced a case for the promotion of competition driven market economy in India.

According to Kelkar, the benefits of reforms and competition can also be compromised if the policymakers and government fail to ensure the absence of market failures. Kelkar said, “This requires building state capacity to design effective incentives and balance pros and cons of policy interventions. State capacity should be built step by step by tackling easy objectives first.”

Kelkar explained that, the country should initiate with lower rate of GST in starting, and should move on to complex high rates and multiple rates after its success. He also said that India needs to build up independent institutions to encourage improvement of policy making by debate and dissent.