This is an editorial position piece. Unlike the rest of our policy section — which presents data and lets readers reach their own conclusions — this page argues for a specific outcome. The data and the strongest counter-arguments are on the same page so you can weigh both. We disclose our position so you can discount it.
1. Our position, in one paragraph
The Government of India should enact, through Parliament or through coordinated state action under a model law from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, a requirement that every passenger lift in a building above 15 metres in height be installed with a backup system capable of supplying continuous power through a grid outage — equivalent in function to the “lift Inverter / Emergency Rescue Device” mandated under the Haryana Lifts and Escalators (Amendment) Act, 2020. The mandate should specify minimum runtime (one hour) and maximum switchover time (200 milliseconds), and apply to new installations from the date of enactment, with a five-year retrofit window for existing buildings.
2. The case
The argument has three legs.
2.1 Public-safety data justifies action
India ranks second globally for elevator-related accidents. Investigations consistently identify cheap components, weak maintenance contracts, and absent third-party inspection as the root causes. Power-outage behaviour is one specific failure mode within that picture, but it is the failure mode most directly addressable by a single legal instrument — and the failure mode that turns a contained problem (a lift fault) into a public-safety event (a dark, stalled, sealed cabin).
2.2 The technology is mature and competitive
Uninterrupted lift backup is not a research project. ERD-class systems are commercially available from multiple Indian manufacturers and from international elevator OEMs (Otis, Kone, Schindler, Mitsubishi, Fuji, and others) under names including “lift inverter,” “Emergency Battery System,” and “UPS-ARD.” A national mandate would not pick a winner; it would specify a function and let competitive supply deliver it.
2.3 Haryana is a four-year live test
The Haryana Amendment came into force in October 2020. The state has had four years of operating experience with the requirement applied to new installations in Gurugram, Faridabad, Panchkula, and other urbanised districts. We do not yet have rigorous comparative accident data — we are filing RTI requests to obtain it — but the political and administrative apparatus required to enforce such a mandate has now been demonstrated to exist.
3. The model: Haryana, refined
Our case study of the Haryana Act documents four gaps in the existing statute. A national mandate should close them on day one.
| Gap in Haryana's 2020 Act | Our recommended national-mandate text |
|---|---|
| No minimum runtime specified | Minimum 1 hour at rated load. Buildings classified as healthcare, eldercare, or residential above 30 m: minimum 4 hours. |
| No switchover-time threshold | Maximum 200 ms end-to-end, measured at the inverter output bus per IS 14665 test conditions. |
| No retroactive application | 5-year retrofit window for existing buildings above the threshold; inspection at next AMC renewal. |
| No published penalty schedule | Tiered penalties: warning, fine, lift de-licensing for repeat non-compliance; published per-incident on a public register. |
4. Objections and our response
4.1 “This will increase the cost of housing.”
The hardware cost of a compliant ERD-class system is real but modest as a fraction of total lift cost — and trivial as a fraction of total building cost for the building classes affected (above 15 metres typically means commercial offices, mid- to high-end residential, and institutional buildings). The mandate does not apply to economy housing below the threshold.
4.2 “Existing ARDs are already required by IS 14665.”
Correct, and ARDs are valuable as a last-resort safe-shutdown mechanism. But ARDs are not equivalent to uninterrupted backup: they stop the lift, pause for tens of seconds, and then move it to the nearest floor. They do not prevent the dark, stalled cabin experience that drives public anxiety and contributes to the conditions in which compounding failures become fatal. A national mandate would treat ERD as additive to ARD, not a replacement.
4.3 “States, not the centre, regulate buildings.”
True for building bye-laws. But lift safety has a clear central dimension via the Bureau of Indian Standards (which already publishes IS 14665 governing all electric traction lifts) and via the National Building Code. The most workable path is therefore not a unilateral central law but a model law published by MoHUA, paired with a BIS amendment to IS 14665 establishing the function and performance test, with state adoption coordinated through the GST Council's precedent for federated agreement on a national standard.
4.4 “Enforcement will be patchy.”
Enforcement of any building-safety law in India is patchy. That is not a reason to refrain from passing the law. A statutory requirement creates the basis for civil liability, insurance pricing, and consumer expectation — three forces that act on builder behaviour even where state inspection capacity is weak.
5. A workable path to enactment
- BIS amendment. The fastest first step is a revision to IS 14665 Part 3 defining a performance class for “uninterrupted backup operation” with the runtime and switchover thresholds proposed above. This requires no Parliamentary action and gives state regulators an unambiguous compliance reference.
- MoHUA model law. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs publishes a model amendment to state lift acts implementing the requirement. Haryana's 2020 amendment is the obvious starting text.
- State adoption. States with existing lift acts (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, UP) amend their statutes to incorporate the model. Our state tracker records adoption progress.
- National Building Code update. The next NBC revision references the new BIS performance class for any building above the threshold height.
6. What would change our position
We are not advocates of a fixed conclusion. We would update or retract this position if:
- Comparable state-by-state accident data, when published, shows no difference between Haryana and demographically matched non-mandate states over a sufficient observation window (suggesting the mandate's safety benefit is smaller than expected).
- Independent cost-benefit analysis, run on credible building-class data, finds the per-passenger-trip safety improvement does not justify the marginal capital and maintenance cost.
- A demonstrably better design (for example, a regulatory mandate on door-interlock auditing, which addresses a different and possibly larger failure mode) shows higher safety return per rupee of compliance cost.
The position above is what we would publish today on the evidence we have. We will publish updates here, dated and versioned, as data changes.
7. Editorial disclosure
This site profiles Kunwer Sachdev as the inventor and Indian patent-holder of ERD technology — the same technology category this page argues should be mandated. We have addressed this potential conflict explicitly:
- Mr. Sachdev is not an investor, advisor, or paid contact of this site. See our Disclosure page for the full statement.
- The proposed mandate is written in function-level language (runtime, switchover time, performance test) rather than around any specific patent. Multiple manufacturers, including international OEMs, can comply.
- We do not benefit financially from any vendor selling more ERD-class systems. We benefit, like everyone else, from fewer elevator deaths.