Railway ticketing, Aadhaar, GST, more: Major policy changes in 2019
Apart from celebrating endings and beginnings, and cooking life-amending resolutions, New year is also a good time to look ahead for official policy changes taking place in the coming year. 2019, too, will witness some significant changes happening in various spaces, w.r.t. banks, Aadhaar, GST, Insurance, Railway ticketing etc. Here, we list top 7 policy changes you need to be aware of.
Quicker confirmation for wait-listed tickets; Scrapping of old cheque-books
1) The Indian Railways will roll out a new service that will facilitate faster and more efficient confirmation for wait-listed tickets, by sending information about vacant seats to the ticket-checker in real time. 2) Starting January 1, 2019, the use of Non-CTS (Cheque Truncation System) cheques has been banned by the RBI. Only CTS-2010 cheques can be used for cash withdrawal from banks.
Changes in Aadhaar-upgradation and use of old, magstripe-based ATM cards
3) Commencing January 1, 2019, Aadhaar users shall be allowed to make one-time change in their Aadhaar-registered Date of Birth, by heading to the nearest Aadhaar center. For any further changes, cardholders will need to visit the regional UIDAI center. 4) In the new year, all existing magstripe-based ATM cards of all banks have been rendered useless. Only EMV chip-based cards will be valid.
Changes in NPS scheme and Accidental Insurance cover
5) With the National Pension Scheme now falling under the 'E-E-E' scheme, pensioners would not have to pay tax on the NPS scheme. As under the E-E-E scheme, amount invested (upto certain limit), profits made, and full corpus (with some limitations) are all tax-exempt. 6) The Insurance Regulatory Authority of India has hiked accidental insurance cover from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 15 lakh.
Price changes due to dollar-rate and GST amendments
Reportedly, automobile organizations will increase car rates in 2019, due to the upward-moving dollar trends. That aside, the GST council has reduced tax rate on electronic goods such as TVs, gaming consoles, digital cameras etc. Similarly, GST rates for movie-tickets have also gone down.
