Aditya Urban Casa: Lifts not suited for the visually-impaired?
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Aditya Urban Casa: Lifts not suited for the visually-impaired?

Residents say builder is flouting government norms regarding passenger lifts as they raised several other issues with Noida Authority.

Aditya Urban Casa: Lifts not suited for the visually-impaired? Picture used for representative purpose only

Residents of Aditya Urban Casa, a residential society in Sector 78, Noida, lodged a complaint recently with Noida Authority against the developer for not making passenger lifts suitable for use by the visually-impaired.

They complained that the lifts installed in the society don't have speech indicators, an automatic announcement equipment. Lack of this facility restricted mobility of the visually-impaired in the society.

Col P Chandra, an ex-army officer, who lodged the complaint, said, "Speech indicators help a visually impaired person use the lifts on their own as they announce name of the floor when the lift reaches a particular floor of the building. As they are not available in the society's lifts, it causes problems for the differently-abled."

He told City Spidey that a government directive says that the passenger lifts should have facility to enable visually-impaired persons to use lifts. He said, "The builder is flouting the norms and isn't doing this simple work even though it is a matter of a few hundred rupees."

Residents also complained about other technical issues due to which lifts break down frequently in the society and that the builder does not call the lift manufacturing company for repairing them.      

Transparency in utilisation of maintenance fund was another issue that the residents raised with the Authority. They claimed that they paid the builder Rs 3.5 crore as interest free maintenance charge. The interest, which the amount earns, is supposed to be spent to provide residents various services. In addition to this amount, residents collectively paid another Rs 3 crore as maintenance charge of two years in advance. But the services are not up to mark because of which residents suspect foul play in expenditure over maintenance. The builder has also failed to share the balance sheets with residents despite the demand to do so.  

Residents also feel that the builder was charging them exorbitantly for increasing electricity connection load. They complained that the builder had charged residents Rs 7,000 for increasing load of one kilo watt. They said that they were not getting the copy of bills stating electricity consumption.

They alleged that the builder delayed the fitting of piped natural gas (PNG) lines in the society. Col Chandra said, "Most of the builders instal PNG lines while the construction work is in progress. This builder had asked for consent from residents for doing so. It’s just an obstruction the builder created for not carrying out the work."         

On receiving complaints, Noida Authority called a joint meeting of builder, buyers and officers recently to discuss the issues and direct the builder to solve all them. Manish Kumar Verma, additional CEO, and Santosh Kumar, officer on special duty with the Authority for group housing projects, were present at the meeting. The builder skipped the meeting but he sent his employees to note down the complaints.

Kumar directed representatives of the builder that the problems should be solved within a stipulated period of 15 days and that the builder has to reply to all the issues raised by the residents.