KATHMANDU: The Department of Tourism (DoT) has refuted the media reports claiming that Nepal is preparing to prohibit climbing mountains including the Mt Everest as baseless rumors.
In a press release on Tuesday, DoT clarified that discussions on the topic of prohibiting mountaineering on any of the mountains among the 414 including the Mt Everest for the next year or halting for some time have not been held even informally in the Department.
The DoT stated that its serious attention was drawn towards dissemination of news related to stopping or prohibiting mountaineering on Mt Everest for coming some years. It also urged all the stakeholders not to go after such bogus talks as this topic was not true.
DoT Director-General Dandu Raj Ghimire said wrong publicity was being made lately in regard with mountains including the Mt Everest which the government has opened for mountaineering and appealed not to believe such rumors.
He said the Department will move ahead through coordination and in consultation with the stakeholder bodies to make mountaineering well-managed and safe.
It is stated that the Department was moving ahead seriously regarding how best the mountaineering activities during the remaining seasons of this year could be systematized with the conclusion of the spring mountaineering season of 2019.
The Department said a committee, constituted to study the existing problems related to mountaineering and to give suggestions on ways of resolving the problems with the objective of rendering Nepal’s mountaineering tourism the most systematized and safe in the world, has already started its work.
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