With a view to providing greater convenience to taxpayers, it has been decided to keep the branches of Agency banks, dealing with Government business, open for transactions on March 31, 2025 (Monday-Public Holiday). In order to facilitate accounting of Government receipts and payments in the current financial year itself, necessary arrangements have also been made to conduct special clearing operations across the country. Special clearing will be conducted for government cheques on March 31, 2025 for which the Department of Payment and Settlement Systems (DPSS), RBI will issue necessary instructions.

With a view to providing greater convenience to tax payers, it has been decided that RBI offices dealing with Government business and all designated branches of agency banks conducting government banking business will keep their counters open as per normal working hours on March 30, 2024 and March 31, 2024; electronic transactions can be done till the stipulated time on both the days.

As the financial year 2020-21 – the year of the pandemic – was drawing to a close, the Indian economy was advantageously poised, relative to peers. India was at the foothills of a strong recovery, having regained positive growth, but more importantly, having flattened the infections curve. In a few weeks since then, the situation has altered drastically. Today, India is fighting a ferocious rise in infections and mortalities. New mutant strains have emerged, causing s