India, Sept. 4 -- From September 22, the central piece of India's indirect tax regime, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be both lean and low. Lean because there are now only three (in fact, mostly two) tax slabs compared to the previous five, and low because a large number of commodities and services have seen a reduction in tax rates.

GST created a unified national market for goods and services in India after decades of persuasion and negotiation. It was a leap of faith for everybody, from the government's fiscal managers to businesses who had to deal with something that had never existed to states that gave up their sovereign right to tax. Could things have been done in a better way when GST was rolled out in 2017? Definitely. Jus...