Hyderabad:Most residential and commercial complexes hardly pay attention to their lifts. This oversight is leading to frequent malfunctions, injuries and even fatalities.
There are no clear, enforced safety guidelines for the maintenance and operations of lifts. Building owners and management associations sometimes ignore routine servicing, and many lifts are being run on outdated systems.
What is more, residential apartments, to save on money, use install lifts. In case they have installed branded lifts, they hand over the maintenance to local firms as it turns out to be cheaper.
Adding to the already existing negligence, in some cases, untrained personnel undertake their repairs, thereby adding to the risk of accidents.
Shashank from Ashoknagar, said “The lift in an apartment I used to stay in was completely faulty. Not only did it require frequent repairs but it also used to go up and down with a jolt.”
Gunta Ramesh, a resident of Vanasthalipuram and the general secretary of their apartment’s committee, said, “The workers coming to attend lift-related complaints are not professionals and cannot even resolve basic problems.”
Incidentally, this problem also exists in lifts at Metro Rail stations and government offices ostensibly because of lack of maintenance. While a majority of lifts at skywalks and pedestrian bridges never work or are out of service, other public-access elevators are not maintained properly.
Many people have been urging GHMC officials and other authorities to come up with effective policies and guidelines on elevator safety, and mandate periodical inspections besides putting in place emergency response systems.
