As per the amendments being planned on Tourism Act, 1978, the government will not allow individuals above 75 and below 18 years of age to climb the highest peak on earth.
Speaking at a program organized to mark 36th World Tourism Day in Kathmandu on Sunday, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Kripasur Sherpa said preparation was underway to make amendment to Tourism Act, related to mountaineering, to fix the age limit. "We won't issue permits to individuals with serious disabilities who cannot go to Everest on their own," said Sherpa.
The new policy is being made as part of an effort to control accidents and deaths on the slopes of Everest in attempts to set or break records.
According to Mountaineering in Nepal: Facts and Figures published by the Department of Tourism, a total of 4,428 mountaineers have set foot on Mount Everest as of May 23, 2014, since Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary first stood on its summit 62 years ago.
Existing rules bar individuals below 16 years of age to climb Mount Everest. The government, however, had not set a maximum-age barrier for the same.
The current world record for the youngest Everest summiteer was set by American
teenager Jordan Romero in 2010. Similarly, Japanese skier Yuichiro Miura (80) holds the record for the oldest person to have climbed Mount Everest.
"In case of disability, we had tried to implement it few years back as well considering their own security," Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, said.
He, however, said disabled people, who can climb the mountain on their own without the need of support from others, should be allowed to climb.
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