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Modi's address to the nation:
The Island
|September 23, 2025
'GST 2.0 implementation first step towards economic self-reliance'

Modi
Hours before the new tw-slab Goods and Services Tax (GST) is about to be rolled out at midnight on Sunday (September 21, 2025), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed it a “bachat utsav”, a festival of savings, and the first step towards “aatmanirbharta” or economic self-reliance for Indians.
In a televised broadcast to the nation, Modi drew connections between the simplification of the GST regime from a four-slab to two-slab system, ease in compliance, and the reduction in prices resulting from it to a larger point about the need for Indians to weed out foreign-made products from their everyday life, and adopt products made in India, boosting the country’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
This story is from the September 23, 2025 edition of The Island.
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