UPSC Mains 2017 GS2 Q11 — GST Amendment
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"? (Answer in 250 words)
Question Decoded — examiner's intent
- Directive verbs
- ExplainDo you think
- Scope keywords
- salient featuresConstitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016cascading effect of taxescommon national marketgoods and services
- Implicit sub-parts
- Identify specific Constitutional Articles introduced or amended (e.g., 246A, 269A, 279A).
- Analyze the mechanism of 'input tax credit' as the primary tool to combat tax cascading.
- Evaluate the role of the GST Council as a driver of 'cooperative federalism' in creating a unified market.
- Assess current bottlenecks such as the exclusion of petroleum/alcohol and tax-slab complexities that hinder 'efficacy'.
- Common pitfalls
- Focusing too much on the economics of GST (GST rates, collection data) rather than the Constitutional Amendment provisions.
- Ignoring the 'cascading effect' mechanism and failing to explain how the amendment specifically removes 'tax on tax'.
- Neglecting to mention the GST Council, which is a core feature of the 101st Amendment.
- Providing a purely positive view without critiquing the 'efficacy' regarding compliance burdens or the 'compensation cess' friction between Center and States.
- Dimensions required
- Constitutional/LegislativeFederal/PoliticalEconomic/FiscalAdministrative/Compliance
- Marks allocation hint
Allocate 5-6 marks for explaining the technical features of the 101st Amendment (Articles 246A, 269A, 279A). Spend the remaining 9-10 marks on a balanced evaluation of its efficacy, using roughly 100 words to discuss successes in removing cascading effects and 75 words to address persistent challenges like the fragmented tax structure and logistics hurdles.
Unlock the full analysis for this question
You've seen the question and its examiner-intent decoding. Subscribers also get:
- 🔗 Similar Previous Year Questions — cross-year, cross-paper matches so you study the topic, not the question
- 📚 Source Map — verified citations from Laxmikanth, NCERT, PRS, Yojana, Economic Survey, Spectrum
- 🌱 How this topic is evolving — current-affairs bridge anchored to live TARS news clustering
- 🧭 Examiner's Pattern — how the topic has been framed across every year UPSC has tested it
- ✍️ Answer Skeleton — a structured outline (intro → body → conclusion) you can flesh out
- 🎯 AI evaluation — write your answer, get rubric-based scoring from gs-eval
Or browse 132+ free preview questions across all years and papers — the first 3 questions of every paper are unlocked.
Ready to practice?
Subscribers can attempt this question in 250 words and get an instant, rubric-based evaluation showing where they stand.
Subscribe to evaluate your answer →