The obsession with convergence of GST rates

A GST Council meeting is due to take place soon. And the debate about the multiplicity of rates has started yet again. Though discussed many times earlier, it is still important to put in perspective how and why the multiplicity of rates was arrived at when the GST laws were being conceptualized. As is known, GST had merged the myriad indirect taxation laws - the central excise, the service tax, a…