Explain the salient features of the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016. Do you think it is efficacious enough “to remove cascading effect of taxes and provide for common national market for goods and services”?

The Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016 created the constitutional architecture for the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the deepest restructuring of India's indirect taxation since Independence.

Salient Features

• Article 246A confers concurrent power on Parliament and State legislatures to legislate on GST; Parliament alone legislates for inter-State supplies.
• Article 269A provides for an Integrated GST on inter-State trade, levied and collected by the Union and apportioned between the Union and the States.
• Article 279A creates the GST Council — the Union Finance Minister as chairperson with State finance ministers — where the Union holds one-third and the States two-thirds of the votes, and decisions need a three-fourths majority: an institutionalised form of cooperative federalism.
• It subsumed 17 Central and State levies, including central excise, service tax, State VAT, entry tax and octroi.
• Alcohol for human consumption is excluded; five petroleum products await inclusion on the Council's recommendation. States were guaranteed compensation for revenue loss for five years.

Is It Efficacious?

• Cascading is substantially removed: seamless input tax credit now flows across goods, services and State borders.
• A common national market has emerged — inter-State check posts were abolished, e-way bills cut logistics delays, and daily truck travel distances rose sharply.
• The tax base has more than doubled to over 1.4 crore registrations, and monthly collections have stabilised near ₹2 lakh crore.

Persisting Gaps

• Multiple rate slabs and frequent changes dilute the one-nation-one-tax ideal; inverted duty structures lock up refunds.
• Petroleum, electricity, alcohol and real estate remain outside, so cascading persists in energy and construction value chains.
• Compliance burden weighs on small enterprises, and compensation disputes have strained Centre-State trust.

The amendment is largely efficacious in its twin goals; rate rationalisation and phased inclusion of the excluded items would complete the common market it promised.