India, Aug. 21 -- When I was a young journalist in Bombay (now Mumbai), there was an event that evoked a lot of humour and pained resignation. It was 1986 or perhaps 1987. The Octroi tax staff in the city went on strike over some issues. Since commerce does not, and cannot, stop in Mumbai, military and paramilitary personnel were deployed at the Octroi centres. The daily collections went up by more than 10 times the usual average. The strike was withdrawn.

In case you are unaware, in the pre-Goods and Services Tax (GST) era, Octroi was collected for inter-state transportation of goods, and by large municipal corporations. It was riddled with corruption, as the Mumbai episode proves. To understand the transformation that GST has ushered i...