The decision was taken in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (Representational)

The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Tuesday approved a loan of Rs 1,000 crore to the state's expressways development authority to speed up the construction of Purvanchal Expressway connecting Ghazipur to Lucknow.

The decision was taken in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

A prestigious project of the state, the nearly 354 km-long Purvanchal Expressway is being built by Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority.

The six-lane carriageway is set to reduce travel time from Ghazipur in eastern Uttar Pradesh to state capital Lucknow to 4.30 hours.

Briefing media after the Cabinet meeting, state government spokespersons Shrikant Sharma and Siddharth Nath Singh said the Cabinet took five other decisions too Tuesday.

The decisions included allowing private printing presses to bid for government's printing work and approval of various civil works in the Allahabad High Court premises at a cost of nearly Rs 1000 crore.

The spokespersons said the Cabinet decided to allocate government's printing works to private printing press through e-tendering process.

The government earlier used to allocate its printing works to private printing presses also but the practice was stopped in 2002.

Various civil works for the Allahabad High Court campus that the Cabinet approved included building roads, a VIP suit and a conference hall at a cost of nearly Rs 440 crore, they said.

It also approved an additional allocation of Rs 530 crore for building a multi-level parking and advocates' chambers in the high court campus.

In a bid to expedite resolution of civil disputes, the Cabinet also approved some amendments to the Civil Procedure Code.

The amendment would empower even the district and additional districts judges to hear cases involving rejection of arbitration awards by any party to a dispute, referred for arbitration under the provisions of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

As per the present provisions of the Code, only high court is empowered to hear such cases, they said.

The spokespersons added that the Cabinet also decided to transfer the money to beneficiaries of the Chief Minister Housing Scheme directly to their accounts.