The central government’s flagship welfare scheme the Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee scheme (MNREGS) will undergo several changes in the near future. Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has said that promoting environment conscientiousness at the ground level will be one of the focus areas of the scheme.

“In the next phase of MNREGS, the programme will focus more on managing natural resources like water, land to create sustainability at the community level. Then, it can promote resilience for climate change,” Ramesh said at the release of a UN report on global sustainability in New Delhi on Thursday.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi earlier in the day said that the MNERGS portfolio should be widened to include several policies for the creation of  community assets. She was speaking at the annual NREGA sammelan in New Delhi.

Ramesh also said, “Resilience to climate change, adapting to climate change involves watershed and soil management, water conservation and harvesting that are labour intensive and can be integrated and dove-tailed into the MNREGA programmes.”

February 2 marks the sixth anniversary of the launch of the scheme.