Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Sharat Singh Bhandari has said that development of infrastructure is imperative to bolster the tourism sector.

He made this remark while speaking at the third meeting of the Nepal Tourism Year 2011 main committee held on Tuesday.

The meeting discussed the utilisation of the budget allotted for the tourism sector. The committee said the Rs 20 million budget for the fiscal year 2009-10 will be mobilised for the operation of Sagarmatha Day.

Sagarmatha Day is being planned to be celebrated with a conference of Everest summiteers, official inauguration of NTY 2011, international and national tourism promotion, production of materials for the promotion of NTY 2011, advertisement of NTY 2011 in the electronic media and regional promotion programmes for the tourism year.