Govt registration, monthly maintenance, emergency protocol — what UP Lifts & Escalators Bill mandates

govt registration, monthly maintenance, emergency protocol — what up lifts & escalators bill mandates

Govt registration, monthly maintenance, emergency protocol — what UP Lifts & Escalators Bill mandates

Lucknow: Mandatory registration of installation of lifts and escalators, their maintenance on monthly basis, installation of CCTVs, insurance of lifts installed in public premises, reporting of any fatal accident or injury during lift operations and compensation to the aggrieved person’s family — these are some of the main provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Lifts and Escalators Bill, which received the state Assembly’s nod Saturday.

It fulfills a longstanding demand from residents and apartment owners’ associations. It promises relief for apartment dwellers and flat owners in high-rise buildings, particularly in metropolitan cities and NCR cities like Noida and Ghaziabad, where tragic deaths have occurred due to lift malfunctions and free falls in the recent past.

On 22 December last year, nine people were reportedly seriously injured after a lift crashed from the eighth floor of a building in Noida’s Sector-125. Before that, on 3 August, a 73-year-old woman suffered a panic attack and became unconscious when the cable of a lift in a society in Noida Sector-137 snapped, resulting in a free fall between several floors. It stopped a few floors below hitting the ground. The woman was declared dead after being taken to a hospital.

In a similar incident in July, a 29-year-old resident of Noida, was rescued from a lift after the cable snapped. He died while undergoing treatment. The same month, 10 workers were reportedly killed after a lift collapsed at a construction site in Greater Noida.

Incidents have also been reported from Noida and Ghaziabad of people being stuck in lifts for up to 25 minutes before being rescued.

“With the increasing use of lifts and escalators in the state, accidents related to them are also increasing. In the absence of an enactment pertaining to lifts and escalators in the state, there is no effective control on the lifts and escalators installed in multi-storey buildings, and building owners are operating lifts and escalators arbitrarily without following any safety rules,” said energy minister Arvind Kumar Sharma while tabling the Bill Friday.

Due to non-use of safety devices in lifts installed by builders in multi-storey buildings, complaints are being made by allottees to the concerned development authority and other forums, he added.

The Bill makes the owners (those who own or operate a lift) liable for registration of the installation of such a lift/escalator and for ensuring monthly maintenance, while also making the manufacturers and agencies, that are involved in the installation and maintenance, to get themselves registered with the government.

Registration & maintenance

The Bill provides that every owner intending to install a lift or an escalator in any premise after the commencement of this Act, shall make an application to officers authorised by the government for the purpose and get the action registered with the Directorate of Electrical Safety under the department of energy.

Installations of lifts/escalators for private premises (someone’s own residential house used by his or her own self and family) and public premise shall be registered separately and the lift or escalator can only be erected by a person who has registered himself or herself with the government.

“The owner who has registered to install a lift or escalator shall intimate the completion of commissioning, before use of lift or escalator, to such officers as the government may authorise in this behalf on a prescribed format for the purpose along with a fee as may be prescribed,” reads the Bill.

For owners of existing lifts/escalators, the Bill states that they should apply to the government for registration for their operation within six months from the date of the commencement of this Act.

Further, the Bill makes it mandatory for the owners of lifts/escalators in public premises to submit its annual maintenance contract (AMC) to the government and ensure their maintenance on a monthly basis.

Owners of such installations in private premises have however been exempted from this clause.

“He shall ensure that the lift or escalator is maintained by the competent person or agency authorised at least on monthly basis,” it adds, adding that he should also take a fitness certificate from the AMC technical team every time the latter visits for maintenance or to attend to any fault, and the entry to this effect shall be made by the latter in the logbook for periodic maintenance.

The Bill states that the owners should ensure that any technical fault coming up during day-to-day operations, are attended to promptly and makes it obligatory on their part to place a visible “NOT IN USE” display till such fault is rectified.

It also states that a logbook of periodic maintenance shall be maintained and displayed near lift or escalator installed in a public premise and that it be produced when asked by any such officers as authorised by the government for the purpose along with a mock drill exercise at least twice in a year for safe exit of passengers trapped inside the lift in case of an emergency.

Rescue devices, CCTVs & insurance

The Bill makes it mandatory for the owners of lifts and escalators to ensure the installation of an automatic rescue device in case of any breakdown, along with installation of CCTV cameras inside such installations.

“There shall be adequate light in the lift and two-way communication system to be used by the passenger along with an emergency bell inside the lift to be used in case of any emergency. There shall be a display of instructions for the passengers about how to use the emergency provisions in the lift,” it states.

The Bill also asks the owner of list/escalator in a public premise to take insurance mandatorily to cater to any accidents or mishaps during operations to cover the risk of passengers using such a lift/escalator, and the amount payable to the deceased or injured must be commensurate to the norms prescribed by the government,” it says.

Lifts/escalators commissioned in government premises have been exempted from needing such insurance.

The Bill states that the lift and escalator in public premises shall be disabled-friendly and, in case, it is shifted to some other premise or any alteration or addition is made to such an existing installation, fresh registration shall be mandatory.

“A lift or escalator installed in the premises shall be uninstalled by the owner of the lift or escalator on expiry of the life span of the lift or escalator specified by the manufacturer,” it states.

Mandatory reporting of an accident, compensation to aggrieved

The Bill makes it obligatory for an owner of a lift/escalator to inform the DM and in-charge of the jurisdictional police station about a loss or injury to human or animal life during operation, “without any delay” and “not later than 24 hours of the occurrence of the accident”.

“In case of an accident, the lift or escalator installation shall not be interfered with in any manner except for the rescue operation and its working shall not be resumed except with the prior written permission of the DM who shall give permission only after taking a technical report from the electrical inspector having jurisdiction,” it notes.

It adds that a separate logbook of accidental history shall be maintained and displayed near a lift or escalator installed in a public premise.

The bill states that the DM will require an electrical inspector and an executive magistrate to jointly inquire and report the cause of any such accident affecting the safety of the public caused by or in connection with the installation, operation and maintenance of lift/ escalator.

“The DM, while ordering the inquiry, shall indicate a period within which the report shall be submitted,” it states, giving an electrical inspector and executive magistrate powers of a Civil Court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, for the purpose of enforcing the attendance of witness and compelling the production of documents and the material objects.

Further, the bill states that after the DM receives the inquiry report in such an incident, the family of the deceased or an injured person or his legal guardian, in case of a minor, be given financial compensation by the owner of such a lift/escalator not later than the period prescribed since submission of inquiry report.

It also provides that in case of any delay or failure in paying of compensation by the owner, the DM shall use coercive provisions as done for the recovery as arrears of land revenue.The UP Revenue Code Rules, 2016, provide for a series of coercive actions that a DM can initiate against a defaulter who fails to pay arrears for a piece of land including issuing a warrant for the latter’s arrest and his detention, attachment of defaulter’s moveable property, attachment of land for which arrest is due, etc.

(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)

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