NMA holding election for new executive body today

KATHMANDU, August 4: Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) is holding election for its new executive committee in Kathmandu on Saturday.

Incumbent first vice president Santabir Lama and immediate past president Zimba Zangbu Sherpa are leading their respective panels in the election. Though efforts were made to elect the new consecutive committee on a consensus basis, it was not successful.

Established 43 years ago, NMA is the alpine club of the country. It is a common forum of mountaineers, mountaineering experts, and mountain tourism entrepreneurs.

Talking to Republica, presidential candidate Lama said that he would work to promote mountaineering and adventure tourism in Nepal by doing away with the challenges that the sector is seeing. Establishing a fund to finance search and rescue of mountain workers when they meet with an accident and improving mountaineering laws and policies are some of the programs announced by the Lama panel. 

Similarly, another presidential candidate Sherpa has unveiled plan to enhance skills of mountaineers and mountain workers by providing needful training, provide scholarships to children of mountaineers who perished during mountaineering expedition and develop mountaineering as a vibrant sector of Nepali economy.

NMA has 13 chapter offices, including Annapurna, Api, Bouddha, Jugal, Kanchenjunga, Kanjirowa, Makalu, Manaslu, Mera, Sagarmatha, Saipal and Sisne. The government has authorized it to collect royalty of 33 peaks. It operates International Mountain Museum in Pokhara.