Lucknow, Jul 31 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government Tuesday decided to go ahead with the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project under which all village panchayats (councils) in the state would be linked with broadband connectivity.

The state cabinet at a meeting presided over by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav decided that services like mobile cash transfer, voice, data and video transmission would be provided in the villages.

The Department of Telecommunications had last year approved the Rs.20,000-crore NOFN to provide broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh panchayats across the country to enable the government implement various e-governance initiatives.

The state cabinet also decided to keep the Lokayukta out of the purview of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005.

It decided to re-implement the Kanya Vidya Dhan scheme that was started by the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Under the scheme, girl students passing the high school exams were given cheques worth Rs.20,000. The Akhilesh Yadav government has now increased the financial assistance from Rs.20,000 to Rs.25,000.

The beneficiaries of the scheme would be Dalits, Other Backward Castes, religious minorities and the poor from the upper castes.

The cabinet also changed the name of the Manyavar Kanshiram Arabic-Persian University to Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Arabic-Persian university.