Nepal rejects India’s offer to jointly re-measure Mt Everest

Nepal has rejected India’s offer to jointly re-measure the height of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, following the massive earthquake in 2015 and will carry out the measurement exercise on its own.

However, the Nepal will seek help from China and India for receiving crucial data and information for this exercise.

The Survey of India, a 250-year-old institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), proposed re-measuring of Mt Everest as an ‘Indo-Nepal Joint Scientific Exercise’.

Mt Everest measurement in Past
Earlier too, China had measured Mt Everest in 1975 and 2005 while Indian surveyors had measured Mt Everest in a similar mission in 1956. The Surveyor General of India (SGI) had also measured the Everest during the British era.

Under Sir George Everest’s leadership as the Surveyor General of India, India became the first country to have confirmed the height of Mt Everest and ascertain it as the highest peak in the world in 1855.

However, India is being requested to provide the levelling data while China has been asked to provide the gravity data. The data will be very important to determine the height of Mt Everest.

It is expected that the work of summiting Everest will take place in 2019.

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