Bhubaneswar, July 8: Students seeking admission to Plus Two have been asked to cough up an additional Rs 150 as part of the expenses incurred during the setting up of examination management hubs by the Council of Higher Secondary Examination.

The move has not gone down well with a section of parents.

As many as 205 exam hubs were set up by the council to ensure foolproof security to question papers. Council officials said that around Rs 5 crore went into the construction of these hubs and installation of CCTV cameras and paraphernalia.

The council had approached the higher education department for permission to collect the fee from students starting from the 2014-15 academic session. The department has given its nod to the proposal.

While the decision has invited flak from some parents who argued that students should not be made to pay for the government’s inefficiency in handling the security of question papers, a few others were okay with the new measure.

Amitabh Naik, parent of a Plus Two pass out said: “They did not inform us anything in advance and while these exam hubs were introduced they goofed up in evaluation. The council has collected so much money as rechecking fee. What about that? This is nothing but another plea of extracting money from the students.”

“It’s okay if they take Rs 150 extra. After all it is all about ensuring exam reforms,” said Prakash Mahapatra, father of another Plus Two student.

As an alternative, they can increase the exam fee from Rs 150 to Rs 300 from next year, he suggested.

Council officials said that “fancy exam reforms” executed by the department have drained out the already cash-strapped council leaving the staff in a quandary.

Every year, students who register for Plus Two exams deposit Rs 150 as “examination fees” to the council. The money is used to run the council for a year.

The money is used by the council to take care of the annual expenses towards payment of salaries to staff and all other expenses involved in conducting the examinations including, printing and distribution of question and answer papers, payment to evaluators and publications of results.

This year, various expenses under the newly-introduced measures have been estimated to be around Rs 8 crore.

“While the cost of all these reforms should have been borne by the department, they used the council’s money for the purpose, draining all our resources,” said Narottam Pradhan, president of the council’s employees’ association.

Despite repeated pleas by the staff, the department released only Rs 2 crore to the council towards various expenses. The only option that remains is to collect the amount from the students, said a council official.