Start
March 28, 2026 - 9:00 am
End
March 29, 2026 - 5:00 pm
The International Conference on Socio-Economic Impacts of GST will be held on 28–29 March 2026 at Hotel Gokulam Grand, Akkulam, Thiruvananthapuram.
The conference will bring together academics, policymakers, PhD scholars, and practitioners to deliberate on the realised and anticipated impacts of India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform. Key areas of discussion will include consumption patterns, fiscal federalism, state finances, and broader socio-economic outcomes.
Click here for draft Programme Schedule
The Goods and Services Tax (GST), introduced in 2017, marked a landmark reform in India’s indirect tax system by subsuming a complex network of central and state taxes into a unified framework. The reform aimed to simplify compliance, create a common national market, and enhance economic efficiency. Over time, GST has emerged as the single largest source of indirect tax revenue and a critical pillar of India’s fiscal architecture.
In recent years, and particularly under the rubric of next-generation GST reforms, significant rate rationalisation and structural adjustments have been undertaken. These include reductions in GST rates on selected goods and services, efforts to simplify the rate structure, address inverted duty structures, and reduce the tax burden on items of mass consumption. These reforms are intended to stimulate demand, enhance ease of doing business, and improve affordability for households—especially the middle and lower middle classes—while preserving revenue buoyancy.
Even as these reforms have been implemented, there is wide recognition that the GST framework continues to evolve and that substantial scope remains for further reform. Ongoing debates relate to deeper rate rationalisation, broadening of the tax base, inclusion of currently excluded sectors, strengthening compliance mechanisms, and institutional reforms to improve coordination between the Centre and States. These prospective reforms raise important questions about their likely socio-economic consequences, consumption behaviour, state finances, and centre–state fiscal relations.
GST has also fundamentally reshaped India’s system of fiscal federalism, altering the balance between revenue autonomy and coordination across levels of government. Issues surrounding state revenue stability, fiscal space, intergovernmental transfers, and the functioning of intergovernmental institutions have become central to discussions on the future of cooperative federalism in India.
Against this backdrop, the conference seeks to provide a rigorous forum for examining both the realised and anticipated impacts of GST, situating recent reforms within a broader analysis of consumption patterns, socio-economic outcomes, state finances, and India’s evolving fiscal federal framework.
click here for the BROCHURE