Every monsoon, Indians brace for flooded streets, thousands of potholes, traffic snarls and waterlogged railway tracks. But within thousands of apartments and commercial complexes, there’s a quieter crisis that rarely makes the news until someone gets stuck in an elevator.

Elevator breakdowns spike across older housing societies in India during the rainy season. Residents enter lifts carrying dripping umbrellas, wearing wet footwear, and rain-soaked clothing. What happens to the old elevators during such conditions is that moisture seeps into ageing door mechanisms and electrical parts, and Lift pits, leading to corrosion and damage. In addition, the fluctuating power supply and humidity stress the functioning of decades-old equipment. What appears to be a one-off inconvenience is, in fact, symptomatic of ageing urban infrastructure that cannot meet the demands of the present.

Challenges with Old Lifts

This is not only a monsoon problem. Many lifts that were installed 25 to 35 years ago are still in operation well past the useful life of their major components. Replacement appears expensive, and housing societies tend to react with a series of repairs. But every breakdown means another service call, another replacement part, another temporary fix. The cost over time can be significantly higher than planned modernisation.

This is even more challenging when it comes to replacing the old parts with the new ones. Because, as time flies, the market is equipped with new models and technical upgrades. Manufacturers phase out older lift models, leaving maintenance providers with no choice but to use refurbished or non-standard parts. These may recover operation temporarily but may not always provide the reliability or safety expected from modern systems.

What Needs to be Done

It’s not about the lift failure, but being an electrical machine, the components do have a time limit. Just like our motorbikes, or for that matter, an AC or Fridge in our house. Once it starts giving continuous issues, we tend to replace it with a new one rather than trying to fix it. The reason is simple: those issues are visible, hence get our immediate attention. When it comes to elevators, we don’t see the root cause; hence, the necessity always becomes optional rather than mandatory attention.

India is not lacking in regulations. Most of the states have their own Lift Acts governing lifts, which have registration, statutory approvals before operation, periodic inspection, licensing and compliance with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms and explicit maintenance responsibilities of building owners.

The real issue is implementation.

In many buildings, mandatory inspections are deferred, annual maintenance contracts are given primarily on the lowest bid rather than on technical capability, modernisation projects are deferred year after year, and safety audits often turn into paperwork exercises rather than rigorous engineering assessments. Paper checks exist, but prevention is often delayed until after a major failure has occurred.

This mode of response is not affordable for Urban India.

The Truth Behind the Unsafe Elevator

An ageing elevator is not necessarily an unsafe elevator. It is an old and unmaintained one. The elevator is not at fault; it simply needs your attention at the right time.

When the cities are growing vertically, people are dreaming of living on the 100th or top floors. TIER II and TIER III cities are transforming into metro cities; we definitely can’t afford to lose a life for human or technical error.  Especially when elevators are among the most heavily used pieces of a building. They have been used not only by the elderly but by children, elderly people, differently-abled people, and a medically unfit person. Every day, it’s been used to carry children to school, patients, domestic workers, visitors, pets for a walk, and emergency responders. It simply means that one fault or defect directly affects hundreds of people in public life.

As India’s urbanisation continues to grow, conversations around building safety should go beyond structural audits and fire systems. Vertical Mobility is equally worthy of attention. The old ones should be replaced with modern elevators adhering to IS 17900 safety standards. Modern lift systems have intelligent diagnostics, better braking technology, improved door safety mechanisms, and energy-efficient drives and remote monitoring capabilities that greatly reduce the chances of unexpected failures. They also cut down on major maintenance and repair costs in the early years of operation, making modernisation a financially sensible decision, rather than just a capital expenditure.

So the discussion needs to move from ‘How long can we keep patching an old lift?’ “When does delaying modernisation become a threat to public safety?’

Every deferred inspection, every ignored maintenance warning, every postponed modernisation makes avoidable failures more likely. As India stands vertically stronger, building safety should shift from being a compliance exercise to a culture of prevention.

Because the real cost of an ageing lift isn’t the next repair bill. It is measured by the risk we are prepared to live with until the next breakdown demands our attention.

Akhilesh Satre, Director and Elevator Personality, Avinyatech Elevators