One wonders.

"The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime is an 'exemplar' that reduced tax burden on people, brought ease of compliance and created an efficient federal institution with revenue buoyancy for states, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said...citing media reports calling the Rs 1.6 lakh crore (Rs 1.6 trillion) monthly collection as the new normal." HT. "India's gross GST revenue collection in June stood at Rs 1,61,497 crore ( Rs 1.615 trillion), registering a 12 percent year-on-year rise, the Ministry of Finance said. India in April 2023 saw a record high GST collection of Rs 1.87 trillion." ET. "GST has acted as an engine for driving domestic consumption and helped households save on monthly bills since its implementation six years ago, the government said." ET. So, the government is collecting ever rising taxes on the goods and services that we consume and we are saving on monthly bills. This is genius mathematics that even the great Srinivasa Ramanujan (Britannica) would have been proud of. Ramanujan also did not have any college certificate but was awarded the Bachelor of Arts by Research by Cambridge University. MacTutor. This math has been explained by Mr Sanjay Malhotra. Before GST there were hidden taxes and, "As surveys showed, elimination of these cascading taxes and reduction of logistics costs translated to lower prices of goods and services. One may wonder how revenues increased when tax incidence on consumers has reduced." Indeed! One wonders very much. Turns out, it is very simple. "The answer lies in tax collection as the tax base increased from 64 lakh (6.4 million) in September 2017 to more than 14 million in June 2023 and taxpayer compliance improved." But surely, this increased compliance was passed on to us, the consumers, because GST is a consumption-based tax (cleartax)? That may be why, "It is now official that government employees will be receiving a 46 percent dearness allowance (DA Hike) in July 2023." DNA. "Dearness Allowance is paid by the government to its employees as well as a pensioner to offset the impact of inflation." cleartax. A government secretary is paid a salary in excess of Rs 200,000 per month, which is over Rs 2.4 million per year. wikipedia. At 46%, a government secretary will be paid Rs 1.104 million per year as DA to protect them against inflation. According to the second advance estimate (SAE) the per capita GDP for 2022-23 was Rs 1,15,490 and the per capita GNI was a meager Rs 1,13,144. PIB. These people are receiving nearly 10 times the per capita GNI to compensate for inflation. And, we are told we are paying less. Obscene, isn't it.