Uttar Pradesh Assembly passes lift and escalator Bill, Lokayukta Amendment Bill

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Saturday passed the Uttar Pradesh Lift and Escalator Bill, 2024 and Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta and Up-Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2024.

Now, registration will be mandatory for installation of lifts and escalators.

In the second Bill, a provision has been made to reduce the tenure of the Lokayukta and the Up-Lokayukta from eight years to five years.

Speaking on the lift and escalator Bill, Energy Minister Arvind Kumar Sharma said that after an incident in Noida, MLAs Dhirendra Singh and Pankaj Singh had demanded that a law be made for lifts and escalators.

Sharma said that a provision has been made in the Bill that registration will be mandatory for installing lifts and escalators in public. A provision has also been made for immediate information in case of an accident and for insurance and compensation.

Once the Bill becomes a law, lifts and escalators cannot be installed without obtaining the approval of the Energy Department. It will be mandatory for the agencies that manufacture and install lifts and escalators and the agencies that maintain them to register with the Directorate of Electrical Safety.

It will have to be renewed every five years. It will also have to be tested every year and a fee of Rs 1,500 needs to be deposited for this.

A fine will be imposed on the owner or the institution concerned if they fail to get the repairs done and ignore the standards.

Describing the Bill as the need of the hour, Sharma also said that states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal and Haryana have their own laws for installing lifts, but there was no such provision for it in Uttar Pradesh.

He said that its implementation will not only curb accidents, but will also strengthen the system.

BJP member Dhirendra Singh expressed his gratitude to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Energy Minister Sharma for bringing the Bill and said it will prove to be a 'milestone'.

However, Samajwadi Party members Dr R K Verma, Amitabh Vajpayee and Kamal Akhtar talked out the 'shortcomings' of its draft and demanded that it be handed over to a Select Committee.

Vajpayee said that it has not been made clear as to who will give the insurance, who will give the compensation and the data of accidents due to lifts so far has not been given. He alleged that the Bill was prepared in haste.

The energy minister clarified that all provisions will be made in the rules.

Speaking about the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta and Up-Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2024, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna said that the tenure of the lokayukta and the up-lokayukta has been reduced from eight years to five years and the maximum age has been increased to 70 years.