Traffic, Banking, Phone Rules Changing from Jan 1: Here’s All You Need To Know

From January 1, 2021, many rules related to the implementation of the Positive Pay system, FASTags for all four-wheelers across India and the new mode of Goods and Services Tax (GST) return filing facility for small businesses are set to change. As these rules are linked to everyone’s day to day life, therefore you need to know about these rules.

FASTag mandatory for all four-wheelers

The Union ministry of road, transport, and highways has issued a notification making FASTag mandatory for all four-wheel vehicles that were sold before December 1, 2017, after amending the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989. The notification regarding this was issued on November 6, 2020.

‘Positive Pay’ system for cheques

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to introduce the ‘Positive Pay’ system for cheques from January 1, 2021. In this system, there may be a requirement of re-confirmation of the key details for the payments above Rs 50,000. The issuer of the cheque will have to provide information such as the cheque number, its date, payee name, account number, amount among other details.

Contactless card transactions limit

RBI has also enhanced limits for contactless card payments from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000. The move by RBI is to enhance digital payment. However, this will be at the discretion of the user.

Quarterly Goods and Services Tax (GST) return filing

The businesses with a turnover of up to Rs 5 crores will require to file only 4 GST sales return instead of 12 (now) from January 1. This change would impact about 94 lakh taxpayers.

Additional charge on UPI payment

National Payments Corporation of India will impose an additional charge on UPI Payment Service run by a third-party app beginning from January 1. The users may need to pay additional charges while making transactions from Amazon Pay, Google Pay, and Phone Pay. NPCI has applied a 30 percent cap on third-party apps starting the new year. Paytm will also need to pay this charge.

Dial zero before making landline to mobile calls

The department of telecommunications (DoT) has made it mandatory to prefix zero for all calls made from fixed lines to mobiles, effective January 15.

WhatsApp to stop working on select phones

With the beginning of the new year, WhatsApp support will end for some Android and iOS smartphones. The support for WhatsApp will end in 2021 for software that is now dated. Reportedly, the messaging app will not run on devices that do not run-on the Android 4.0.3 operating system and iOS 9 at least.