Sherpas rendered jobless by lockdown to be hired to clean trekking trails by Nepal government

The Nepal government is planning to create jobs for the sherpas, who became unemployed due to the COVID-19 lockdown, by hiring them to repair and clean up the trekking trails in the rugged Himalayas, a media report said on Thursday.

The initiative by the government came as all Everest expeditions slated for this spring season were cancelled on March 12 due to the coronavirus spread, The Kathmandu Post reported.

Climbers and the Nepal Mountaineering Association suggested that the government should use this as an opportunity by mobilising the tourism workers for an Everest clean-up campaign.

"After the virus wiped out thousands of jobs, the association proposed that the unemployed sherpas be deployed to retrieve trash and dead bodies from the world's highest mountain," Danduraj Ghimire, chief of the Department of Tourism, was quoted as saying in the report.

"We discussed the issue of cleaning the Everest and reached a conclusion that it was not possible to begin the campaign immediately," he said.

Stating that the 8,848-metres Mt. Everest needs to be cleaned up by May-end before the pre-monsoon sets in, Ghimire said : "We have now decided to clean the trekking routes this year".

Tourism Minister Yogesh Bhattarai said during a video conference on Monday that the cleaning campaign was meant to keep tourism workers busy and provide them jobs during the post-crisis period too.

The Nepal government makes millions of rupees every year in climbing permits. Foreigners pay USD 11,000 to obtain a permit and spend anywhere between USD 40,000 and USD 90,000 to climb the world's highest peak, the paper reported.

The Department of Tourism collects around USD 4 million annually in royalties from the Everest climbing permits, it said.