Towering nightmare: NCR Residents marooned as lifts of highrise out of order for 6 days

Time of India

24-05-2025

NOIDA: Forty families are living a nightmare in a 22-storey tower at La Residentia with both its lifts out of order, leaving them with two choices - stay indoors and put everything else on hold or make the arduous trek up and down the stairs daily.
This is the second time this month that this nasty shock of highrise living has stared at NCR residents. In the first week of May, flooding of the basement at Prateek Grand City in Ghaziabad had crippled elevators across all its 24 towers, each 28 floors high, forcing over 12,000 residents, children, elderly, and the pregnant among them, to negotiate endless flights of stairs.
Tower 29 of La Residentia in Greater Noida West is a standalone building, so unlike in condominiums where two or more towers are connected by pathways precisely in anticipation of such emergencies, residents can't switch to lifts in another tower.
Among the families who live here are elderly people, working professionals and at least one resident who is pregnant. Residents told TOI the lifts have been out of service since May 17. The purported reason is faulty cables that need replacing.
La Residentia does not have an AOA and is managed by the developer. It has 3,256 flats across 39 towers. Possession for around 1,800 flats has been given since 2017 across towers 1 to 29.
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The other towers are under construction.
La Residentia's maintenance team claimed the lifts aren't completely dysfunctional and work intermittently. Residents, however, countered this, saying the lifts have been inactive and prone to snags even when functional. One of the reasons for the problems, they alleged, is that the lifts are underloaded with a supply of 350V when they need 400V.
Sumil Jalota, a resident, said because of the defunct lifts, children have been forced to miss school, domestic helps aren't coming and deliveries have stopped, leaving families marooned in their flats and cutting them off from access to essentials like medicines and groceries.
Amitabh Jha, 52, a 9th floor resident with a respiratory ailment, had to move to his sister's apartment in Sector 71 to attend court. "I was compelled to do it because neither lift is working," said Jha, who is an advocate. He said this was waiting to happen as the developer had not addressed repeated complaints about lift snags and voltage fluctuations.
Aditya Srivastava, who lives in an apartment on the 15th floor, is appearing for his fourth semester BCom exams at Delhi University, also shifted to a relative's flat in Sector 75.
Aditya (21) has a slipped disk and is not allowed to climb more than three floors at a time.
Ravi Raj Singh, maintenance manager of the society, told TOI on Friday the lifts had a "technical problem" with the cable. He said new cables were procured and, because of the storm, had reached the society only on Thursday evening. "The new cables are being installed and both lifts are expected to be operational from tonight."
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