Impossible to change current mountain policy

Though the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has stressed on the need to change the policy and introduce strict rules to monitor illegal activities in the mountains, people in the sector said that it is impossible to change the policy.

“It is quite difficult to change the existing policy,” said an official at the Tourism Industry Division (TID). “There is only one qualification needed to climb the mountains in our country and that is one has to be at least 16 years old. There is no other requirement mentioned in the existing policy,” the official said.

“It is not easy to bring a new policy but the government must strictly monitor activities in the mountains,” the official clarified.

According to the official, the existing policy has also not mentioned about the type of records that will be authenticated. It only states that records that the government has been pre-informed about and for which permission has been granted will be regarded as authentic.

From 1,953 to 2011, a total of 3,446 climbers have summitted Mt Everest. In spring 2012, a total of 406 climbers climbed the peak and this year in the spring season a total of 512 people made successful summits.

With the end of the spring season, other peaks will now be open for climbing from September, informed TID.

To control illegal activities at Mt Everest, tourism minister Ram Kumar Shrestha, during the Mt Everest Diamond Jubilee Celebration Day, had announced that the ministry is planning to bring a strict policy to monitor each activity.

He had also said that the government will also not support any unauthorised video filming at Everest, apart from stricter licence issuing process, monitoring of age limit and health condition of climbers.

source: the himalayan times,1 June 2013