The cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to the sand policy to check indulgence of the mafia, protect the environment and increase the revenue.

“The new policy has come out with guidelines for carrying out sand mining. The provision for getting environmental clearance has been made mandatory. It talks about development of mining areas, reconstruction and rehabilitation work,” said cabinet co-ordination department secretary Brajesh Mehrotra.

Stating that the decision had been taken in view of the high court’s directive on February 27, 2012, Mehrotra said the policy has outlined certain measures. He said sand mining cannot be carried out within 300m of railway lines, national and state highways, 600m of Koilwar Bridge and 50m of any religious and public places.

The cabinet also approved the creation of a post of an adviser, infrastructure, to the chief minister. He, however, declined to name any name for the post. Political circles, though, are abuzz with speculations that former Union home secretary and retired IAS officer Raj Kumar Singh is likely to become the adviser to chief minister Nitish Kumar. Sources said Singh would be given the rank of minister of state. He would oversee the functioning of road construction, rural works, building construction and urban development departments.

The cabinet also gave its approval to the social welfare department’s proposal of Parvarish Yojana under which people can take care of children infected with HIV or whose parents are suffering from the disease or leprosy.

The cabinet also approved the revised pay scale for teaching and non-teaching employees of 1,128 non-government madrasas and 531 Sanskrit schools, Mehrotra said.