Sans power backup, lifts in LDA’s Srishti Apartment continue to haunt residents
Atul Narayan Srivastava, who lives on the 10th floor of the same building and has a wheelchair-bound daughter was forced to vacate his flat temporarily due to this daily problem.
Saif Khan, a resident of LDA’s Srishti Apartment on Kursi Road, got stuck with his 5-year-old daughter in an elevator for more than 20 minutes on Saturday. While this was yet another case of people getting stuck in a lift in the city, something which the residents of Srishti Apartment said was an everyday occurrence for them.
“As soon as the lift stopped working, Saif started calling neighbours for help. The maintenance person said without diesel he cannot start the power backup,” informed Vivek Sharma, a resident and vice-president of Jan Kalyan Mahasamiti, Lucknow.
“Luckily, the electricity was restored after some time, and the father-daughter duo were rescued. LDA, which was still responsible for the maintenance of the lift in absence of a resident welfare association (RWA), has given the maintenance responsibility to a private company named Panthers Security, which fails to do its job properly. The project started 13 years ago in 2009 under the Jankipuram Ext scheme, and the construction work was yet to be completed. Every time we complain, the LDA sends a representative from the agency but never bothers to visit. There are several other issues with the maintenance of the lift too,” he added.
In the same society, a 10th-floor resident Atul Narayan Srivastava, whose daughter is wheelchair-bound, was forced to vacate his flat temporarily due to this daily menace. “Getting stuck in a lift has become a regular occurrence for us. My daughter and I got stuck for 20 minutes on Thursday. She had her exams, so we temporarily moved to another house in Indira Nagar because we were afraid, she might miss her exams due to being stuck in the lift and waste a year.”
“The lift has been without a power backup system or alarm for a long time. I often get stuck due to one malfunction or another. Society has 16 lifts, but only one man looks after them. There is a huge lack of accountability,” said another resident K.B. Singh, who lives on the 16th floor of Srishti Apartment.
“This is not an everyday phenomenon; it sometimes happens due to a power cut. I asked the authorities concerned to make sure that a sufficient amount of diesel was available the next time. The project has been completed, and more than 300-350 families are living there. As per my knowledge, their RWA has so far refused to take over the responsibility,” said KK Bansla, LDA executive engineer.
Alok Kumar, the founder and president of the federation of association of apartment owners and a member of the RERA conciliation forum, said this highlights the need for passing a Lift Act in Uttar Pradesh.
“We have been raising the issue since 2015. Despite several incidents hitting the headlines, the government has yet to pass legislation on the subject,” he said.
In the absence of a lift act, state stakeholders involved in the installation and maintenance of elevators are not directly liable for any lapse. In the absence of legislation, operators often escape with little or no repercussions after lift mishaps, he added.