India, Dec. 3 -- Since it does take time to read the fine print, and read between the lines, most newspaper headlines on December 2 look like the media entities heaved a sigh of relief. Why not? After all, the GST collections declared for November 2025 appeared to be marginally, or 0.7 per cent, higher than the figure for the same month in the previous year. This was considered a success story, given that the GST 2.0 regime was implemented on September 22, 2025, and included across-the-board cuts in rates for most products and services categories, along with the reduction in the number of slabs.

For instance, there is zero GST on medical and life insurance, which would take away a chunk of revenues. Include a clutch of items of daily con...