1. The Indian regulatory stack
Lift safety in India sits on three layers that interact:
- BIS standards — published by the Bureau of Indian Standards. The core series is IS 14665 for electric traction lifts, with adjacent standards covering testing, accessibility, and modernisation. These are standards, not law on their own.
- National Building Code (NBC) — the central building code, published by BIS. NBC Part 8 (Building Services) Section 5 covers installation and maintenance of lifts and escalators, and references the IS 14665 series.
- State lift acts — the legal instruments that make standards and code provisions enforceable. Each state with a lift act (currently 11) sets up a licensing regime that, in turn, requires compliance with the IS standards. See our state-by-state tracker.
A change at the BIS layer (an amendment to IS 14665) does not on its own become law in any state. But once BIS publishes a revised standard, every state lift act that references “the relevant BIS standard” immediately picks it up at the next licensing renewal. This is the fastest available regulatory path for any national change to lift requirements.
2. IS 14665, part by part
The current IS 14665 series was published in 2000–2001, replacing older standards (IS 4666, IS 1860, IS 3534). It is structured in five parts plus several sub-sections.
| Part | Title | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Part 1 | Outline Dimensions | Standard dimensions for passenger, goods, service, and hospital lifts. Determines what fits in a building shaft. |
| Part 2 | Specifications | Technical specifications and performance requirements (Sections 1 and 2 cover passenger / goods and service / hospital lifts respectively). |
| Part 3 | Safety Rules | Safety provisions including the ARD (Automatic Rescue Device) requirement at Clause 9.5. This is the part most relevant to backup-power policy. |
| Part 4 | Components | Nine sections covering buffers, guide rails and shoes, carframe and counterweight, safety gears and governors, retiring cam, doors, machines and brakes, and wire ropes. |
| Part 5 | Inspection Manual | The procedural standard inspectors apply when verifying compliance. |
IS 14665 has been periodically reviewed but the core text is now two decades old. The Bureau is engaged in ongoing revision work, most visibly summarised in the elevator industry press.
3. Adjacent standards worth knowing
| Standard | Year | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| IS 14671 | — | Lifts for persons with disabilities. |
| IS 15259 | — | Testing requirements for lifts. |
| IS 15785 | 2007 | Code of practice for installation and maintenance of passenger and goods lifts. Cross-cuts the technical standards with the operational requirements that AMCs are supposed to embody. |
| IS 17386 | 2019 | Modernisation / replacement of existing lifts. Important for any retrofit mandate — including the five-year retrofit window we propose in our national-mandate position. |
4. The National Building Code layer
The National Building Code (NBC) is the central code that state and municipal building bye-laws are typically modelled on. The current edition is NBC 2016 (with subsequent amendments). For lifts:
- NBC Part 8 (Building Services), Section 5 covers installation and maintenance of lifts and escalators.
- NBC references the IS 14665 series for technical compliance, making it the standards bridge between BIS publications and municipal building approval.
- Any backup-power requirement added to IS 14665 (or to a future companion standard) would naturally flow into the next NBC revision and from there into local building bye-laws.
5. How state acts reference all this
State lift acts vary in their drafting, but the typical pattern is to require that any lift installation comply with “the relevant Indian Standard” (i.e. the IS 14665 series in force at the time of installation). That delegation has two practical consequences:
- States can effectively raise their lift safety floor by adopting BIS revisions, without requiring fresh state legislation.
- States can also go above the BIS floor — as Haryana did in 2020 by mandating uninterrupted backup, a function not yet required by any IS 14665 part.
Most states do neither. Their lift acts inherit BIS in the abstract and then do not actively police whether installations actually meet the latest revision. This gap is part of the larger enforcement problem documented in our incident ledger.
6. Where ERD fits — and doesn't
The current IS 14665 framework requires an ARD — a battery- operated rescue device that stops the lift, pauses, then moves it to the nearest floor. There is no IS 14665 clause that requires the lift to continue operating through a power outage. That higher requirement — what we call “ERD-class” backup — currently exists only in:
- The Haryana Lifts and Escalators (Amendment) Act, 2020, as a state-statutory requirement.
- Some private installations (typically commercial offices and hospitals) where building owners have specified it voluntarily.
- Manufacturer datasheets describing voluntary product capability (Indian and international ERD-class systems both exist).
7. What needs to change
Our editorial position on the regulatory path forward is set out at /policy/proposal. In summary, the single highest-leverage change is at the BIS layer: an amendment to IS 14665 (likely a new Part or a revised Part 3) defining a performance class for “uninterrupted backup operation” with measurable runtime and switchover-time thresholds. State lift acts that already reference “the relevant Indian Standard” would then pick it up without further legislation.
A model law published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and an NBC amendment, would close the remaining gaps for buildings and states that have not modernised their references.
The committee with subject-matter responsibility for IS 14665 is the BIS Sectional Committee covering electrotechnical equipment for lifts. We would value contact from members willing to discuss the drafting feasibility of an “uninterrupted backup” performance class. Email editor@liftinverter.com.