New Delhi, Mar 7 (IANS): Union Cabinet on Thursday approved setting up of 50 new Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV) under the civil and defence sectors across the country.

"The Vidyalayas are proposed to be opened in the Civil/Defence Sector. Once fully functional, these will provide quality education to approximately 50,000 students," the government said in a statement.

Union Minister Arun Jaitley, while announcing the decision, said that these new schools will be set up in areas that are hotbeds of left wing extremism, as well as in places with heavy deployment of Central Reserve Police Force troops or with high concentration of railway employees.

Currently, there are over 12,000 KVs across the country and three abroad.

The new KVs will be set up in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Karnataka, West Bengal, Assam, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh.