New Rules: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will launch the “NITI NCAER State Economic Forum” portal on Tuesday. Data related to social, economic and fiscal parameters of the states till 2022-23 (last three decades) will be available on this portal. Developed in collaboration with NITI Aayog’s National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), the portal will provide direct access to the state database across five categories – demographics; economic structure; fiscal; health and education.

Apart from this, the portal will also provide information on the macro and fiscal scenario of 28 Indian states. This data will be based on demographics, economic structure, socio-economic and fiscal indicators, NITI Aayog said in a statement. The portal will facilitate understanding of macro, fiscal, demographic and socio-economic trends.

Apart from this, a new financial year is starting from 1 April. With the start of the new financial year, many changes are going to happen in the financial sector of the country. The new changes include changes related to income tax rules, changes related to credit cards, changes in UPI rules and other financial sector changes. Let us know about the major changes that are going to happen in the new financial year.

New Income Tax Rule Changes

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced new tax slabs and rate changes during her Budget 2025 speech. These revised income tax rules will also come into effect from April 1. Under the new Income Tax rules, people with income up to Rs 12 lakh annually will not need to pay income tax. Salaried people will also get the benefit of standard deduction of Rs 75,000. This will effectively make a salary of Rs 12.75 lakh tax-free under the new tax system. Apart from this, tax slabs have also been changed under the new tax system.

Changes in UPI rules

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has issued several guidelines to increase the security of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). These guidelines will come into effect from April 1. UPI payments from inactive numbers will not be possible from April 1. NPCI has asked banks and third-party UPI providers like PhonePe and Google Pay to implement guidelines for phasing out inactive numbers linked to UPI. These numbers pose a security risk. If your mobile number linked with UPI has not been used for a long time, you may lose access to your UPI account from April 01.