VIJAYAWADA: Six persons, including a girl, have been selected for Mount Everest expedition from the state. The Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs issued a notification for the Mount Everest inviting applications.
As many as 130 persons were selected — 10 from each district. Noted mountaineer Dachinepalli Sekhar Babu was roped in for the project and training of the candidates.
Abilities of the selected persons were tested at various stages. Out of 130 candidates, 25 persons were shortlisted in the first stage. They were taken to Sikkim, where they took the challenge of expediting 18,000ft peak.
After the Sikkim tour, nine persons were shortlisted and finally six were zeroed in.
K. Parvati, 22, a native of Peda Pariya in Nellore district, is the only girl in the final six.
Hailing from a family of daily labourers, she has expressed confidence that she can climb Mount Everest successfully. S. Nagaraju, 19, from Ammulapalem in Visakhapatanam is the youngest in the team.
He said Poorna and Anand, who scaled Everest in 2015, were his inspiration and after knowing about the government notification, he applied for the expedition.
Kare Satyarao, 20, from Bangarammapalem in Visakhapatnam comes from a fisherman’s family.
G. Chennarao, 25, from T. Narasapuram in West Godavari district, M. Dharmateja, 21, a B.Tech student from Denduluru in West Godavari, and T. Bharat, 27. from Kurnool also got selected for the Everest expedition.
The expedition programme is likely to be started in the first week of April.
Mr Sekhar Babu, who scaled Mt. Everest seven times, will train them and guide the expedition. He said the final selected candidates were now being trained on technical aspects like using oxygen, carrying the weight and walking on the rough terrain.
The team met Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs K. Acchennaidu and principal secretary L.V. Subramaniam on Monday and expressed gratitude for the support from the government.
