Investigative Committee to Probe Mountaineering Issues

Kathmandu: Nepal government formed a five-member investigative committee to look into various issues, problems raised during the mountaineering tourism in Spring 2019.

The committee is expected to identify the problems and chalk out necessary policies, procedural legal frames, and recommendations to address the raised problems.

Prime Minister’s cabinet meeting held on June 7, 2019, had directed the formation of an investigative committee under the coordination of Spokesperson Ghanshyam Upadhyay of Human Resource and Tourism Promotion Department at Ministry for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.

The committee members are the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN), Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), while the Chief of the Hotel and Tourism department is the office secretary.

The committee had its first meeting on Tuesday. According to Director General Dandu Raj Ghimire of the Department of Tourism, the committee is to investigate the issues related to review mountaineering working procedures, an obligation of government’s liaison officer, mountaineering royalty, sanitation, measures of insurance, trekking agency, managing tourist trails, prohibited areas, the rescue operation, certification, management of tourist information and death of mountaineers, etc.

The issues such as Everest traffic jam, death of mountaineers, careless in the rescue operation, liaison officer unable to reach atop peaks, few fake records of the Everest summit were reported in the media recently.

The coordinator of the committee Ghanshyam Upadhaya said that the committee will complete its task within the stipulated time. Member Secretary and Director General of Department of Tourism Meera Acharya said that the committee will submit its report within 45 days.