No, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has not said that the government is working on a road map for single rate GST, as reported by many media outlets or at least as suggested by some of the headlines.
What the finance minister is talking about is single standard rate instead of the existing two standard rates of 12 per cent and 18 per cent.
He said: "A future road map could well be to work towards a single standard rate instead of two standard rates of 12 per cent and 18 per cent. It could be a rate at some mid-point between the two. Obviously, this will take some reasonable time when the tax will rise significantly."
So what he meant was the government may be looking to merge the two standard rates - 12 per cent and 18 per cent - to a single rate, may be 15 per cent or 16 per cent.
Of course he also talked about phasing out the 28 per cent tax slab "except in luxury and sin goods".
So, what he is apparently saying is instead of five slabs now - 0.5 per cent, 12 per cent, 15 per cent and 28 per cent - the government is looking to have four GST slabs - 0.5 per cent, 15 or 16 per cent and 28 per cent.
Here's what he said: The country should eventually have a GST which will have only slabs of zero, 5 per cent and standard rate with luxury and sin goods as an exception.
Even that would take 'some reasonable time' in Jaitley's own words.