Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) has asked the government to grant it the right to issue permits to climb 23 additional peaks.  Zimba Zangbu Sherpa, president of the NMA, said the demand is made with the aim to attract more tourists to scale more mountains during Nepal Tourism Year 2011 when international mountaineering conferences is being hosted in Nepal by NMA.

The Association already has the right to issue mountaineering permits for 33 peaks. According to Sherpa, the mountains for which NMA is demanding the authority are unknown to the tourists so far and need publicity. He added that the NMA has already started publicity about these peaks.

However, Laxman Bhattarai, Spokesperson at the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MOTCA) said the demand is being processed by the Ministry. He also added that as the ministry itself is issuing permits to such peaks, it may not be necessary for granting NMA the authority. “There can be no guarantee that more tourists will come if the permit is issued by the Association,” he added Currently, 326 mountain peaks are open for climbing but no climbing attempts have been made as yet for 110 of them.