Poorly maintained lifts a major risk for Ggn residents

Gurugram: In the past few months, there have been multiple incidents of poorly maintained lifts in plush malls, posh residential condominium societies and even government offices malfunctioning and causing trouble to the public.

In a recent incident, a lift fell from the ninth floor of a posh condominium society, leaving the occupants injured, but luckily no fatalities.

Later, on June 28, a lift got stuck for over 45 minutes at the District Mini-Secretariat, and trapping two of its occupants for several hours. The two are now demanding compensation of Rs 50 lakh from the government for failing to address the problem of the malfunctioning lifts, which could even have taken a fatal turn.

Such problems, meanwhile, are not new to residents of condominium socities.

In October last year, residents of of Fresco condominium society at Golf Course extension road filed a police complaint against their developer for not repairing the malfunctioning lifts.

The complaint was filed after three kids, between the ages of ten and twelve were trapped in the lift for over 20 minutes.

This incident was followed by an elderly facing a similar ordeal in the same society. After police intervention, the matter was ultimately settled amicably.

The perils to safety of citizens came to light in another case where more than 20 people, including children, were stuck in a lift for more than an hour in a posh mall at Golf- Course Road.

Some occupants had even fainted from suffocation, but were eventually rescued by Gurugram police who undertook a tedious rescue operation.

There have been complaints that most residential societies and malls do not maintain their lifts, in order to save expenses.

Some of the resident welfare associations have also alleged that as maintenance of lifts is mostly outsourced, most of the agencies cite the excuse of delay in receiving payments and do not undertake maintenance work within the deadline.

Even though it is mandatory that lifts must be surveyed every alternate year by competent authorities, there are cases where some lifts in Gurugram have not undergone repairs for over five years.