Bhubaneswar, Nov. 7: Employees of the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) today started an indefinite strike here demanding that the council should be given back the responsibility to conduct e-registration for Plus Two examinations.

The government had entrusted the responsibility with the Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC).

Around 200 employees squatted before the entrance of the CHSE building and raised slogans against the authorities for trying to “corner” them by “snatching away” their responsibilities “one after another”.

“There is no reason why the work should be outsourced. The authorities have their vested interest in giving the task to the OCAC,” said an employee.

Although the council conducted e-registration for the Class XII exams in 2011, the state government handed over the work to the centre in 2012.

“While the council charges each student with Rs 2.09 as registration fee, the centre charges Rs 20 per registration. The rates are exorbitant and the council is losing its money to all these agencies,” said Abhiram Khatua, president of the association.

The employees said that the centre should give Rs 60 lakh that it had received as the registration fee in 2011-12 to the council. The employees also demanded a refund of about Rs 90 lakh from the department of higher education that was spent from the council’s fund to exempt fees of students from flood-affected areas. The employees said that the power of transferring students from one college to another had also been taken away from the council and was being handled by the department of higher education.