Bearding the GST issue

Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal drew an interesting analogy between a Sardar’s beard and autonomy under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime at a recent meeting of state finance ministers. Some states raised the issue of losing autonomy under the new regime so Badal described how he recently heard of a marital dispute in which the wife wanted to divorce her husband because his beard shook whenever he ate. In his defence, the husband said he couldn’t help shaking his beard while he ate; in fact, nobody could do that. Asking for autonomy in GST, Badal explained, is little different from the wife’s demand for a static beard.