76percent of people want mandatory standards for lift maintenance: Report

NEW DELHI: A whopping 76 percent of people want the government to introduce mandatory standards for lift maintenance, according to a report on Saturday.

According to the report by online community platform LocalCircles, nearly one in six people who use lifts have had one or more family members get stuck in a lift in the last three years.

Only 46 percent of people said they have an Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) with the manufacturer.

The report comes as a 70-year-old lady residing in Noida's Paras Tiera society in sector 137 lost her life on Thursday after being trapped in the lift for 45 minutes. She experienced a terrifying free fall followed by a sudden ascent, and despite rushing to the hospital next door, she could not be saved.

Media reports said the AMC for lift maintenance had expired a few months ago, in June.

Such incidents of people getting stuck in lifts and free falling from lifts are common across not just residential societies but office buildings, shopping malls, factories, and several other establishment types in the country.

In another case, last week, two kids under 10 in Pune had a miraculous escape from a lift that went crashing down. Such incidents are common.

LocalCircles conducted the survey on more than 42,000 people living in 329 districts of India. A total of 13,333 people living in buildings with lifts responded to a query on the issue of people getting stuck in lifts.

Another 13,954 people answered questions about how lift maintenance is done. Almost 46 percent indicated that the lift was being maintained by the manufacturer; 42 percent shared that it was being maintained by a third-party contractor; 7 percent claimed it was maintained by the society staff or other miscellaneous staff; and 5 percent claimed that no one maintains it except when there are people on call as and when required.

LocalCircles also sought to find out the way forward for having better-maintained lifts, where 76 percent out of 14,973 shared that the government should create mandatory standards for lift maintenance and enforce them.

Given that most new buildings and apartment complexes have lifts, which can be the case for even individual houses having more than one floor, it is important that the government frame mandatory rules for not just the installation protocol of lifts but also the maintenance of lifts, they said. (IANS)

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