Govt opens 137 mountain peaks in four states to foreigners for mountaineering and trekking

The government has opened 137 mountain peaks across four states for foreigners desirous of obtaining mountaineering visa for mountaineering and trekking. These peaks are located in the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim. While the highest number of 51 peaks have been opened to foreigners in Uttarakhand, 15 peaks of Jammu and Kashmir have also been included in the list.

The Minister of State for Culture and Tourism, Prahlad Singh Patel, has expressed his gratitude to Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, for acceding to the request of Tourism Ministry to open up more peaks to foreigners. It is a historic step towards promoting adventure tourism in the country, said Patel.

Earlier, while addressing the Tourism Ministers from States/UTs at the National Tourism Conference in New Delhi, the Tourism Minister emphasized on the need for ensuring the safety of those travellers going for adventure tourism. He urged the states to exercise utmost caution while registering adventure tourism operators and also to ensure that the adventure tourism guidelines are followed by the states.