Just 11 engineers for 73,324 lifts in Maharashtra

Mumbai's PWD reveals shocking manpower stats in response to an RTI application

danish

Danish Raza | February 11, 2010



There is just one engineer for more than 6,500 lifts each in Maharashtra. Shocking as it may be, Mumbai's public works department (PWD) has said there are 11 engineers to inspect 73,324 registered lifts in Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Pune region.

The PWD has said this in response to an RTI application filed by Mohammad Afzal, a resident of Mumbai.

Afzal had demanded that information should be provided to him within 48 hours under section 7(1) of the Act as it was a matter of life and liberty. He gave recent examples of lift accidents in Mumbai, where people had either died or got injured.

“According to Section 11 of Bombay Lifts Act 1939, it is the responsibility of the state government to inspect each lift twice a year. Assuming that each engineer inspects 30 lifts per week, it will take around four years to inspect each lift even once,” said Afzal, who, on January 14, inspected the log book of the PWD’s lift, energy and labour department with RTI activist Krishnaraj Rao.

The inspection revealed that there had been 30 fatal accidents in lifts in Maharashtra in the last seven years.

“It is a problem of every big city. There is a grave lack of manpower,” said Afzal.

Afzal decided to file an RTI application after his brother, Mohammad Farooq, got trapped in the lift of a residential apartment on Yari road, in Andheri (West).

Comments

 

Other News

Making AI work where governance is closest to people

India’s next governance leap may not solely come from digitisation. It will come from making public systems more intelligent, more adaptive, and more responsive to the dynamics at the grassroots. That opportunity is especially significant at the panchayat level, where governance is not an abstract po

Borrowing troubles: How small loans are quietly trapping youth

A silent crisis is playing out in the pocket of young India, not in stock markets or government treasuries, but in smartphones of college students and first-jobbers who clicked on the Apply Now button without reading the small print.  A decade ago, to take a loan, you had to do some paperwor

A 19th-century pilgrim’s progress

The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas By Jaladhar Sen (Translated by Somdatta Mandal) Speaking Tiger Books, 259 pages, ₹499.00  

India faces critical shortage of skin donors amid rising burn cases

India reports nearly 70 lakh burn injury cases every year, resulting in approximately 1.4 lakh deaths annually. Experts estimate that up to 50% of these lives could be saved with adequate access to skin donations.   A significant concern is that around 70% of burn victims fall wi

Not just politics, let`s discuss policies too

Why public policy matters Most days, India`s loudest debates stop at the ballot box. We can name every major leader and recall every campaign slogan. Still, far fewer of us can explain why a widow`s pension is delayed or how a government school`s budget is actually approved. That

When algorithms decide and children die

The images have not left me, of dead and wounded children being carried in the arms of the medics and relatives to the ambulances and hospitals. On February 28, at the start of Operation Epic Fury, cruise missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh school – officially named a girls’ school, in Minab,


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter