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Sans penal provisions, much-awaited lift law poised to be toothless
The new law lacks teeth in the absence of penal provisions that are now being taken out of the draft to avoid creating a sense of fear among the people who are to be held responsible for a lift failure/accident in the state.
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Lucknow: In a significant development, the long-awaited law aimed at regulating the functioning of lifts and escalators to ensure safety of users of vertical transport in Uttar Pradesh is all set to lose its bite when it finally sees the light of the day after years of discussions and deliberations.
The state government, according to people aware of the development, is gearing up to present the Uttar Pradesh Lifts and Escalators Bill, 2024 in the coming Budget session of the state legislator next month after chief minister Yogi Adityanath approved the draft with some changes in a meeting a few days ago.
The new law, however, is poised to be largely toothless in the absence of penal provisions that are now being taken out of the draft to avoid creating a sense of fear among the people who are to be held responsible for a lift failure/accident in the state.
“The law in its final shape will have no provision for imprisonment or fine though the earlier draft did contain such provisions,” a senior official said.
The chief minister, he revealed, had recently asked the energy department that is drafting the law to delete provision for levy of fine on the agency that might be found guilty of flouting norms resulting in a lift accident.
“Earlier, chief secretary Durga Shankar Mishra diluted the proposed law by ordering deletion of the clause related to imprisonment from the draft law and now the chief minister has asked the officials to expunge the provision related to the fine from the draft,” the official said.
Confirming the development, additional chief secretary, energy Mahesh Kumar Gupta said, “We are deleting the penal provisions related to imprisonment and fine from the final draft as desired by the chief minister while giving approval to the proposed law a last week.”
“The revised and final draft will be put before the Cabinet very soon to get the UP Lifts and Escalators Bill passed in the coming Budget session of the state legislature. The lift law will become a reality in the state after the Bill is passed and gets the governor’s assent,” he said.
The draft law that is now being reshaped provided for a jail term which could extend to three months or a fine that could extend to ₹one lakh or both in each offence as provided under section 146 of the Electricity Act, 2003.
Gupta claimed other provisions like compulsory registration of lifts and insurance of lift passengers, mandatory annual maintenance of lifts etc would continue to be intact in the law.
“The amount of insurance will be specified in the rules when they are framed but it will not be less than ₹2 lakh in the event of death of an individual due failure of a lift,” he said.
The provision of insurance will not be applicable to government lifts. “This is because the government will, anyway, give compensation in such cases,” he said.
“Also, authorities will continue to have powers to cancel registration or seize a lift if found operating in violation of the provisions of Lifts and Escalator Act or not meeting the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms,” Gupta added.
The proposed lift law that has been in discussion for years amid a growing number of lift accidents, many of them fatal, has been diluted with each revision of the draft taking much of the regulatory bite and deterrence out it. And this raises questions over the effectiveness of the legislation when it kicks in in the state.
