Not saying there aren’t issues with GST, but reminder - GST collections are low because consumption is low; consumption growth was slowing pre COVID and with COVID, consumption level itself dropped massively. Yearning for the pre GST era is misplaced.

So to frame this ONLY as a tax design problem is wrong. It is fundamentally a growth challenge. Governments- Union and state, need to support growth by fiscal stimulus. That requires taking on additional debt. We can debate which govt. should take that debt, and how...

...but the primary goal should be getting growth back. Step back discussion on overall tax design- not just GST but also direct taxes, so that all tiers of govt. have sufficient revenue raising levers is an important debate, but not the only one. The main problem is growth.