From LPG prices to ATM withdrawal: Big changes that will affect everyone from February 1 2021

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented the Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament.

Sitharaman, in her speech, announced a push to the textile industry, a hike in custom duty on cotton and raw silk, a new cess on agriculture development – Rs 2.5 per litre on petrol and Rs 4 per litre on diesel – a central university in Leh, a focus on sea-weed farming with a new facility in Tamil Nadu and a new vehicle scrapping policy that aims to provide the auto sector a boost among other announcements.

However, several new rules will come into effect from February 1, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2021. So, here is a look at some of the new rules coming into effect from today.

The LPG rates are revised at the start of every month. The prices had been increased twice in the month of December, last year, while no change was made in January. In view of the same, the oil marketing companies are expected to revise the cylinder prices on February 1.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is going to resume the e-catering services from Monday. The e-catering service will let the passengers pre-book their lunch or dinner meals on the trains. The Indian Railways had previously suspended the e-catering services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.For the first phase of resuming these services, the e-catering services will only be available on 62 stations in India for now. Some of these stations are New Delhi, Lucknow, Bhopal, Patna, Surat, Ahmedabad, Pune, Howrah, and Ujjain. The e-catering services can be availed by train online by visiting www.ecatering.irctc.com. The orders can be made through the telephone too by dialling 1323.

Local train services in the Mumbai region resumed for the general public from Monday. The announcement in this regard was made by Union railways minister Piyush Goyal after the Maharashtra government proposed to resume the services for all commuters.

Punjab National Bank account holders will not be able to withdraw money from non-EMV automated teller machines (ATMs) from February 1. PNB, one of the country's largest public sector banks, has said that it is restricting financial as well as non-financial transactions from non-EMV ATM machines from Monday. The bank has decided to implement this change to stop ATM fraud. A non-EMV ATM are those ATMs which do not hold the card during the transaction. In non-EVM ATMs, customers' data is generally read by a magnetic strip.

SpiceJet on Saturday announced the starting of 20 new domestic flights, including 16 services that will be connecting Jaipur to various cities including Dehradun, Amritsar, Udaipur and Delhi among others. The remaining four flights would be on the Kolkata-Pakyong route and Delhi-Dehradun route, said the airline's press release. All 20 new flights would be started in February, it stated. All the new flights are scheduled to commence operations effective February 1, 2021 and February 10, 2021.

The Indigo Airline has announced to start Ahmedabad – Aurangabad – Ahmedabad air service from February 3.The 70 to 78 seater flight will be operated on the daily basis. The flight will start from Ahmedabad at 10. 45 am and will reach Aurangabad at 12.15 pm. Similarly. The flight will fly from Aurangabad at 12.40 pm and will reach Ahmedabad at 14.10 pm. The bookings for the flight are available on the online system.

In view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the vulnerability of the elderly population to coronavirus, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has extended the time limit up to February 28, 2021, for the submission of the Life Certificate (Jeevan Pramaan Patra) in respect of the pensioners drawing pension under EPS 1995 and whose Life certificate is due in any month till February 28, 2021.