Tourism Minister Bhim Acharya has said the government will investigate as to why the mountain guides are being paid nominal fee for their indispensable services by their agencies despite foreign mountaineers spending huge chunks of money to climb Mt Everest. 

“We have been informed that a foreign climber spends a maximum $100,000 to climb the world’s highest peak but the hard-working guides gets a paltry wage,” Acharya said at a programme in the Capital on Wednesday. 

Noting that incident like Friday’s avalanche in Everest  that killed 16 mountain guides was a natural event,  Acharya said one cannot stop the occurrance of such disaster. “We can’t stop the inevitable. We can, however, adopt some 

measures to ensure safe climbing,” he said adding that   the government is committed to make climbing safer in the coming days.

The Tourism Ministry is sending a high-level government delegation to the Base Camp to inform the mountain workers and guides about the support the government had extended to the avalanche 

victims. The team comprises representatives of NMA, Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal, Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, Expedition Operators’ Association of Nepal and Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee. 

Acharya also assured that the stalled mountain expeditions would resume after a week as the government has agreed to address almost all demands pressed by the mountaineering and guides associations, including raising the insurance coverage of mountaineering guides and Base Camp workers to $ 15,000 from the earlier US $ 10,000.

Meanwhile, NMA issued a statement on Wednesday claiming the media reports, that all Everest expeditions were abandoned after Friday’s disaster, is false and does not “hold any sense”.

“Yes, Nepali mountaineers are in deep sorrow after the huge human loss, but they are trying to cope with the situation. They are trying to be mentally prepared for the expedition and it will take some time before situation goes back to normal,” NMA President Ang Tshering Sherpa said.