Draft of UP Lift Act ready; residents demand quick implementation

Following the long-pending demand by the residents living in high-rises of Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida, the Uttar Pradesh's Public Works Department (PWD) has finally prepared a draft of the Lift Act and forwarded it to the state administration for immediate implementation.

In its letter to additional chief secretary of state administration, the PWD has requested for a thorough study of the draft by the state’s judicial department as it has been made after studying the Lift Acts of Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and other states.

Being one of their major worries, the residents have been demanding an Act to govern installation of lifts and to fix the onus of maintenance in case of an untoward incident. In the absence of an Act currently, developers install poor quality lifts, which do not have automatic rescue devices, no service lifts and no monitoring by the local authorities.

Alok Kumar, president of Federation of Apartments Owners Association (FedAOA), said that whenever he went to police stations to fix responsibility in any lift related incidents, officials seemed confused due to the absence of such Act. 

"They used to say that accountability can't be fixed without a law," Kumar added. 

The Federation of Apartments Owners Association, which spearheaded the campaign for the Lift Act since 2015, said their fight will continue till the enactment of the law. “We have been fighting for four years. The government should pass it as soon as possible,” said Alok Kumar, .

“In a big state like UP, it is astonishing that no law is designed to govern the operations of lifts even after incidents of lift malfunctioning occurring on a daily basis,” Kumar added.

Sunil Sharma, MLA from Sahibabad area in Ghaziabad, hopes the draft will turn into a law before the ending of budget session of 2019. 

Interestingly, the first Lift Act was implemented in Maharashtra in 1939 and only 12 out of 29 states have enacted it till now!