Agartala, Aug. 28: Reeling under a severe financial crunch, the Tripura government is planning to hike professional and sales tax for businessmen.

Apart from the hike in the tax structure, the government is trying to enforce an austerity drive to offset the impact of growing budgetary deficit.

Official sources here said rising expenditure on the non-plan head, including the liability for paying salaries to newly-recruited fixed-pay employees, have taken a toll on the exchequer.

As a result, the finance department is contemplating a major increase in the professional tax, an assured source of government income as well as the sales tax .

At present, the sales tax structure in Tripura varies between 4 per cent and 12 per cent but the structure will be revised to augment government income.

The Left Front government was maintaining financial and fiscal discipline in the administration unlike all other states of the Northeast. But the growing number of unemployed youths and the Centre’s strict directives to stop recruitment have put the government in a soup.

Official sources said more than 3.5 lakh of Tripura’s estimated population of 32 lakh are unemployed according to numbers registered with the employment exchange. But the government could not put a complete stop to recruitment despite repeated circulars from Delhi.

During 1998-2003, more than 14,000 unemployed persons got jobs but mainly on a fixed-pay basis. The government also passed a cabinet resolution that recruitment would be done through the Public Service Commission for appointment in police, Tripura State Rifles and in case of vacancies caused by death of employees in service.

Demand charter: In Srinagar, chief minister Manik Sarkar urged the Centre to consult the state government before deciding on deployment of armed forces. Speaking at the just-concluded meeting of the inter-state council held at the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, Sarkar also submitted a six-point charter of demands for tackling insurgency in the state.

The charter included the demand for putting pressure on Bangladesh for dismantling the camps of Northeast insurgent outfits operating from that country.