Mahir Haneef
Kochi: The safety of the lifts that have expired its guarantee period is in question now.
Kochi city, with hundreds of apartments and high-rise buildings have several of such lifts.
Thousands of people ride in lifts on their way to office or home. But very few think of the safety they are in their upward and downward flight in lifts even though the number of lift accidents is rising.
When asked about the government rules regarding safety factor in lifts, Senior Town Planner S Rajaram said “Any construction activity in the state comes under Kerala Municipal Building Rules. It specifies that buildings higher than three floors should have lifts, but does not have any rules to govern the safety of lifts.”
There are nearly twenty five companies that manufacture and service lifts in Kerala. A newly installed lift is given a guarantee of only one year. After that, these companies would service the lifts on an annual maintenance contract (AMC). But very few lifts are being serviced regularly as an AMC costs about Rs 70,000. “Some companies even offer AMC at rates as low as Rs 30,000, but even then there are very few takers for AMCs. Apartment owners do not seem to like spending such a huge amount on a lift,” said Jayanth John, a lift service engineer.
Another interesting aspect is that the metal ropes used in lifts do not have any guarantee at all even though manufacturers state that a rope will last for 15 years if serviced regularly. Regular service, according to Otis, the famous lift manufacturing group, is every month. But very few lifts in Kochi city are lucky enough to get this kind of service. “We call the service people only when the lift shows any fault or stops working,” says manager of a renowned apartment in the city.
Referring to lift accidents, S Chandran, another lift service engineer, said, “There are companies that manufacture lifts using substandard materials, leading to accidents. Local lift manufacturers use poor quality metal rope leading to accidents. Even if the metal rope is of good quality, the lift may fall if the hinge on which these ropes are attached breaks off from the top.
“Failure of speed-governing system also causes accidents. The function of the speed governor is to turn off the lift if it the speed of the lift is high due to a defective motor running at high speed. Low-quality speed governors will fail to switch off the lift and thereby causing the ropes to break or hinges to break due to strain. Even if the governor switches off the lift, a defective governor cannot prevent the lift from starting the flight again when the motor cools,” Mr Chandran said.
Another major cause of lift accident is overuse, says Mr John. “If lifts made for apartments are used in high-frequency installations like hospitals, an accident is likely,” he said. Apartment owners think in terms of money only and normally install a lift for five persons even though the usage may demand a lift for eight persons,” he said.
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