Is Your Lift IS 17900 Compliant? A Clause-Level Check

- IS 17900 became the operative Indian lift standard on 22 December 2025 — the day IS 14665, IS 15785 and IS 14671 were withdrawn.

- In Delhi it carries the force of law through the state Lift Act, enforced by the Electrical Inspector. It is not automatic nationwide; adoption runs state by state, and Delhi has adopted.

- Compliance is not a feeling. It is a fixed list of clauses, and a lift either meets them or it does not.

- Most lifts installed before 22 December 2025 fail at least one. That is not alarmism. It is arithmetic — several of these protections did not exist in the old codes.

- Span has commissioned 2,500+ lifts over 25 years with zero incidents. For an on-site assessment, call +91 98106 12213

A lift in Delhi complies with IS 17900 when it satisfies specific clauses of the standard: an electric safety device proving doors closed before movement (5.3.13), Unintended Car Movement protection (5.6.7), ascending overspeed protection (5.6.6), a battery Automatic Rescue Device (5.12.3.3), one-hour emergency lighting at 20 lux (5.4.10.4), and 30 mA residual-current protection (5.10.1.2.3) — with valid Electrical Inspector certification on top.

IS 17900 is the Bureau of Indian Standards safety code for lifts, published in 2022 and largely based on ISO 8100-1:2019 — the same engineering lineage as modern European practice, adjusted for Indian conditions. On 22 December 2025 the old codes — IS 14665, IS 15785 and IS 14671 — were formally withdrawn, and IS 17900 became the standard a new lift must be built and certified to.

Adoption into law happens state by state through each state's Lift Act. Roughly fifteen states and one Union Territory have adopted it. Delhi is one of them. Here, the Electrical Inspector enforces it — and for a building under construction, a non-compliant lift can stall the occupancy certificate.

One adjustment worth knowing: the Indian standard sets the average passenger weight at 68 kg and recalculates the passenger-capacity formula around it. The committee did not copy the international text. It read it, then rewrote it for India.

The protections that decide most compliance assessments are short enough to list. Clause numbers are from IS 17900 (Part 1) : 2022 — check your lift's documentation against them.

- Doors proved closed before movement (5.3.13) — the lift shall not start, nor stay in motion, with a car door open, proved by an electric safety device, not a mechanical latch. Older lifts: mechanical locks without electrical proving.

- Landing door lock monitoring (5.3.9.1) — the locked position of every landing door is verified electrically. Older lifts: often unmonitored.

- Unintended Car Movement protection (5.6.7) — stops the car moving away from a landing with doors open, after any single failure in the machine or drive control. Older lifts: absent, it did not exist in the old codes.

- Ascending overspeed protection (5.6.6) — detects and arrests upward overspeed; older governors only watched the downward direction. Older lifts: absent.

 - Automatic Rescue Device (5.12.3.3) — battery-driven; takes the car to the nearest landing on power failure, within ±40 mm, with capacity for three consecutive rescues per charge. Older lifts: frequently absent.

- Emergency lighting (5.4.10.4) — minimum 20 lux for one hour, at the alarm device, on the car roof, and at the cabin centre. Older lifts: minimal or missing.

- Residual-current protection, RCD (5.10.1.2.3) — 30 mA RCD on socket outlets and on car and landing-control circuits above 50 V. Older lifts: panels often lack it.

- Technician protections (Foreword b) — shaft and car-roof lighting, safer pit and machine-room access, refuge spaces, guarded sheaves. Older lifts: not systematically required.

Two details summaries miss. The ARD must operate on the failure of any one phase, any two, or all three — and during phase reversal. And a lift with a generator or UPS on automatic changeover may omit the ARD under clause 5.12.3.3.2; that exception is in the standard, and any assessor who does not know it has not read it.

How Do You Check Your Own Building's Lift?

Five steps. No engineering degree required — only the discipline to ask for paper instead of assurances.

- Ask the lift contractor for the written Declaration of Conformity to IS 17900 and the installation test certificates. This is the headline proof. A verbal "yes, it's compliant" is worth exactly what it costs.

- Check the lift against the list above. A compliant lift has all of it. There is no partial credit.

- Verify the licence to erect, the licence to operate, and the current inspection certificate from the Electrical Inspector's office.

- Read the maintenance contract. IS 17900 dedicates an entire part — Part 6 — to maintenance, and it defines the "competent maintenance person" and the qualification of the maintenance organisation. The law's own structure says who maintains your lift matters as much as who built it.

- If the lift predates 22 December 2025: commission a clause-level assessment. Most pre-2025 lifts have specific, nameable gaps — and specific gaps have specific fixes.

The Lift Is Older — Modernise or Replace?

Assess first, decide second. A clause-level assessment tells you exactly which protections are missing, which means the modernise-or-replace question stops being a sales pitch and becomes a component list with prices against it. For most residential and commercial lifts, targeted modernisation — UCM means, ARD, door proving, lighting, RCD — closes the gap without tearing out the installation.

Book a Clause-Level IS 17900 Assessment

A Span engineer assesses the installation against the standard — not a summary of it — and returns a written, component-level compliance report. 25 years. 2,500+ lifts. Zero incidents.

Call +91 98106 12213 · Landline 011-4907-1372 · WhatsApp the same number

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