West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had to wait for an hour today due to malfunctioning of a lift at the makeshift 15-storey state secretariat 'Nabanna'.
Banerjee reached 'Nabanna' in Howrah district at 11.45 am as employees queued up for the general lifts designed for slow movement as the building was originally built to house a garment park.
The queues were particularly long as one of the general lifts was out of order.
Banerjee, whose office is on the top floor, allowed employees to use the two VVIP lifts to their offices while she waited on the ground floor for an hour.
She cautioned the department carrying out the repairs of the disabled lift to speed up work.
"Since the elevators at Nabanna were originally meant for carrying goods, they are very slow," PWD Secretary Indevar Pandey said.
There are five lifts -- 2 VVIP and three for employees -- with each able to accommodate 12 people.
The state government is taking the help of German technology to make all lifts at Nabanna faster for better movement of employees and visitors.
The speed of passenger lifts will be increased from 1 metre per second to 1.5 metre per second, for goods elevator 0.5 meter per second to 1.00 meter per second and VVIP lifts will also be made faster accordingly.
Employees and visitors have been facing acute problem in reaching departments since the inauguration of the building because of the slow lifts.
