Lift Rules by State in India: 15 States Compared (2026)

Published October 5, 2026 · Last updated October 5, 2026 · 7 min read

lift rules by state India

Lift Rules by State in India: What 15 States Actually Require (2026)

By Sumeet Katariya, ElevatorPlus ·

In short: India has no national lift law. Each state writes its own, and the states disagree on the three things a lift company runs on: which law applies, how often the government inspects, and whether a per-lift log book is required. We read the Acts and Rules of 15 states in September 2026. Delhi and Kerala carry no log book duty. Bihar and Jharkhand passed Acts that were never brought into force. Telangana has no lift Act at all.

Key takeaways

There is no national lift law. Lifts are regulated state by state, so a company maintaining lifts in two states works under two rulebooks.
Enacted is not in force. Bihar's 2024 Act and Jharkhand's 2017 Act were passed but never brought into force. Maharashtra's 2017 Act has never commenced either; the live law is the Maharashtra Lifts Act 1939 with the Bombay Lift Rules 1958.
Government inspection runs from six months to five years. Delhi, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh inspect at least every six months. West Bengal inspects at least every five years. Uttar Pradesh inspects on complaint only.
Two states have no log book duty. Delhi and Kerala. In Telangana, Bihar and Jharkhand, the only record duty is the one written into your own maintenance contract.
Tamil Nadu changed on 3 February 2026. Its amended Act is in force, and visit records are uploaded at every visit.

What this guide covers: Is there a national lift law · The 15-state table · Acts that are not in force · Log books · Inspection intervals · What it means for your AMC book · FAQs

Is there a national lift law in India?

No. No central Act regulates lift licensing, inspection or maintenance records. Each state legislates for itself, and several have not legislated at all.

That matters more than it sounds. A company with AMCs in Pune and Bengaluru answers to the Maharashtra Lifts Act 1939 in one city and the Karnataka Act of 2012 in the other. The visit you log, the inspection you prepare for and the register you keep all change at the state border.

Lift rules in 15 Indian states, side by side

Read from Act and Rules text in September 2026. Rules change by notification, so check your state's current position before relying on any single cell.

State	Law in force today	Government inspection	Per-lift log book
Andhra Pradesh	Lifts and Escalators Act 2025, Rules notified March 2025	At licensing and at five-year renewal	Yes
Assam	Lifts and Escalators Act 2006, Rules 2010	Every 3 years	Yes
Bihar	Lift and Escalators Act 2024, enacted but not in force	Not in force	Not in force
Delhi	Bombay Lifts Act 1939 as extended, Delhi Lifts Rules 1942 (amended 2017)	At least every 6 months	No
Gujarat	Lifts and Escalators Act 2000 as amended, Rules 2001 as amended	Every 5 years, plus the owner's yearly test by an authorised person	Yes
Haryana	Lifts and Escalators Act 2008 as amended, Rules 2009	Every 3 years	Yes
Himachal Pradesh	Lifts Act 2007, Rules 2009	At least every 6 months	Yes
Jharkhand	Lift and Escalators Act 2017, enacted but not in force	Not in force	Not in force
Karnataka	Lifts, Escalators and Passenger Conveyors Act 2012, Rules 2015	Yearly	Yes
Kerala	Lifts and Escalators Act 2013 (amended 2018), Rules 2012	Licence for 3 years, then yearly	No
Maharashtra	Maharashtra Lifts Act 1939, Bombay Lift Rules 1958	At least every 6 months	Yes
Tamil Nadu	Lifts and Escalators Act 1997, amended 2025, in force 3 February 2026	Allotted through the state portal	Yes, uploaded at every visit
Telangana	No lift Act	None	None
Uttar Pradesh	Lifts and Escalators Act 2024, Rules 2024	On complaint only	Yes
West Bengal	Lifts, Escalators and Travelators Act 2019, Rules 2022	At least every 5 years	Yes

Which states have a Lift Act that is not in force?

Three Acts on this list describe nothing today.

An Act comes into force when the state notifies a commencement date. Until then, its licence periods, inspection cycles and penalties are text, not law.

Bihar, Lift and Escalators Act 2024: passed, never brought into force.
Jharkhand, Lift and Escalators Act 2017: passed, never brought into force.
Maharashtra, Lifts, Escalators and Moving Walks Act 2017: never commenced. Maharashtra still runs on the Maharashtra Lifts Act 1939, which requires every lift to be inspected at least once in six months (section 11). We traced this in full in The Maharashtra Lift Act Everyone Quotes Has Never Come Into Force.

Quoting a not-in-force Act as current law is the most common error in Indian lift compliance copy. It shows up in vendor brochures, tender documents and AMC proposals.

Which states do not require a per-lift log book?

Delhi and Kerala, of the 15 we read. Telangana, Bihar and Jharkhand have no Act in force, so they carry no statutory log book duty either.

In those five states, your maintenance contract is the only record rule. That is thinner protection than it sounds.

In 2026 the Supreme Court looked at what a lift maintenance contractor could produce after a fatal accident. It found the contractor "produced no attendance register, duty chart, log book, or other contemporaneous record". Its own contract had required all of them, and their absence "does not assist its case". The court held that a party undertaking the comprehensive maintenance of a lift owes its users a heightened duty of care.

No state rule forced that contractor to keep a register. Its contract did, and the missing records counted against it.

How often does the government inspect lifts in each state?

Interval	States
At least every 6 months	Delhi, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh
Yearly	Karnataka; Kerala after the first three-year licence
Every 3 years	Assam, Haryana
Every 5 years or at least every 5 years	Gujarat, West Bengal
At licensing and five-year renewal	Andhra Pradesh
Allotted through the state portal	Tamil Nadu
On complaint only	Uttar Pradesh
None	Telangana; Bihar and Jharkhand until their Acts commence

Karnataka is the state that catches people out. The government inspects once a year (Rules 2015, rule 17(1)). Separately, the owner must get the lift tested and maintained by a registered person once in every three months (Act 2012, section 14(3), carried into rule 12(4)(i)). Those are two clocks, not one.

Gujarat runs two clocks as well, and it is the state most often quoted wrongly. The 2000 Act said every three years. Since the Gujarat Lifts and Escalators (Amendment) Act 2013, a government Assistant Inspector inspects every five years from the grant of the licence (section 16(1)(b)), and the licence itself is valid for five years. Separately, the owner must get the lift inspected and tested by an authorised person once a year (section 16(2)), down from every six months in the original text. Anyone quoting three years or six months for Gujarat is reading the 2000 text.

What does this mean for a company running AMCs across states?

Three changes, in order of how much money they protect.

1. Build one checklist per state, not one national template. A Bengaluru visit and a Delhi visit should not capture the same fields. The Karnataka visit needs the quarterly test recorded. The Delhi visit has no statutory log book, so your own contract decides what gets written.

2. Record every visit, even where the state does not ask. In Delhi, Kerala and Telangana, the record you keep is the only record that exists. A court, an inspector or a customer's lawyer will ask for it whether or not a rule did.

3. Run the state's clock separately from your PM clock. Your preventive maintenance cycle is commercial. The state inspection cycle is statutory. When both live in one spreadsheet column, one of them gets missed.

👉 Running lifts in more than one state? See how inspection checklists are set up for each state →

In ElevatorPlus, each customer builds its own checklists and tracks AMC, breakdown and inspection visits against them. A company working in Maharashtra and Karnataka runs two checklists in one system. AMC renewal reminders go out 60 days, 30 days and 1 day before expiry.

Frequently asked questions

1. Is there a central lift Act in India?

No. Lift licensing, inspection and records are set by each state. Several states have no lift Act.

2. Which states require a per-lift log book?

Of the 15 states we read, every state with an Act in force requires one, except Delhi and Kerala.

3. Is the Maharashtra Lifts, Escalators and Moving Walks Act 2017 in force?

No. It has never commenced. Maharashtra operates under the Maharashtra Lifts Act 1939 and the Bombay Lift Rules 1958.

4. How often must lifts be inspected in Karnataka?

The government inspects once a year. The owner must also have the lift tested and maintained by a registered person once in every three months.

5. How often are lifts inspected in Gujarat?

A government Assistant Inspector inspects every five years from the grant of the licence, under the Act as amended in 2013. The owner must also get each lift inspected and tested by an authorised person once a year.

6. Does Telangana have a lift Act?

No lift Act was in force when we read the state's law in September 2026. The only record obligation is the one in your maintenance contract.

7. What changed in Tamil Nadu in 2026?

The amended Lifts and Escalators Act came into force on 3 February 2026. Inspections are allotted through the state portal, and records are uploaded at every visit.

8. Did the 2026 Supreme Court judgment create a national lift law?

No. It gave no direction to any government and ordered no legislation. It held that a lift is to be treated as a common carrier, and that a party undertaking comprehensive maintenance owes users a heightened duty of care.

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India runs fifteen different lift rulebooks in the fifteen states we read, and more in the states we have not. The differences are not small print. They decide how often an inspector arrives, whether a log book is a legal duty, and whether the Act you are quoting exists at all.

The safest operating rule is also the simplest: write it down everywhere, whatever the state asks. Where a state requires records, you comply. Where it does not, you are the only one with evidence.

The cost of getting this right is a checklist per state. The cost of getting it wrong showed up in a courtroom in 2026.

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