Delhi government is planning to scrap its project to provide a bird’s eye view of the city from 154-metre height of the Signature Bridge, months after the tourism department failed to get permission to operate inclined lifts to take tourists to a viewing gallery set up atop the pylon, official sources said on Sunday.
There are four lifts installed in legs of the bow-shaped pylon of the bridge. Two lifts are inclined at an angle of 60 degrees and two at 80 degrees.
The sources said there is a lot of risk involved in taking people to glass façade in slant lifts at such a height.
“Despite repeated requests, the labour department did not give us the permission to use these inclined lifts. It looks unlikely that this project will ever take off. They (the government) don’t want to take risk and are planning to let go the idea of taking people to such a height for the city’s view,” a source told PTI.
In September last year, the labour department had denied permission to operate inclined lifts to carry tourists. The Delhi government had set a deadline of January 31, 2019, for the project.
Officials of the Delhi Tourism and Transport Development Corporation (DTTDC), which was given the responsibility to helm the tourism project at the Signature Bridge, said that the stalemate is “lack of permission” to operate slant elevators to ferry visitors to the viewing gallery.
They said that statutory permission is required from the electrical branch of the labour department of the Delhi government to start operations and take tourists to a glass facade (viewing gallery) that has been built atop the bow shaped steel pylon — twice the height of Qutub Minar — of the country’s first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge. The height of Qutub Minar is about 73 metres.
Explaining the reason behind not getting the approval, a tourism department official said that lifts installed in the pylon of the Signature Bridge are inclined, while only vertical lifts are given permission to be operated in the country.
The official said that in Delhi, elevators are permitted in any building in accordance with the Bombay Lifts Act 1939. This Act was adopted by Delhi in 1942. At that time, mostly vertical lifts were in use, so the Act gives permission only for the operation of vertical lifts to ferry passengers, the official said.
Despite meeting all international safety standards, slant lifts at Signature Bridge did not get permission for public use on account of this Act, the sources said.
“We cannot change the Act and any amendment to this can be done by the Maharashtra government, which will be a long process. In India, nowhere such elevators are being used. So we cannot give examples to get the permission. Hence, the tourism project to take tourists to the viewing gallery seems very unlikely now,” another source said.
The officials, however, said that the department is still consulting national and international experts on the subject but chances to implement the project are bleak.
The all-glass viewing gallery is ready and offers a panoramic view of the river Yamuna and the city and has four levels with a spiral staircase. The glass gallery can accommodate around 50 people at a time.
The Signature Bridge, built at a cost of Rs 1,518.37 crore, was thrown open to commuters in November 2018. The bridge connects Outer Ring Road with Karawal Nagar and Bhajanpura in northeast Delhi.
