Aerial lifts in India

The aerial lift in India, also known as ropeways or cableways in India, consists of various Cable transport systems such as Aerial tramway, Chairlift, Gondola lift and Material ropeway where cabins, open chairs or containers are hauled above the ground with the help of cables. With 30% of India being mountainous, aerial lifts offer an efficient mode of connectivity in these terrains where roads and railways are otherwise difficult to build.

While historically restricted to hill stations and pilgrimage sites, under the Indian government's Parvatmala Scheme (lit. 'mountain garland scheme'), India envisages spending ₹1,250 billion (US$15 billion) in public–private partnership (PPP) mode over five years till 2030 to build 200 new ropeway projects of more than 1200 km length, to decongest the traffic on the narrow roads of big cities where implementation of other modes would pose challenges, in addition to mountainous locations. This article also contains a list of glass bridge skywalks in tourist locations.

Darjeeling Ropeway in West Bengal was India's first ropeway opened in 1968. Rajgir Ropeway in Bihar, a 333m-long chairlift ropeway built in the 1960s, is India's first chairlift ropeway. As of 2024, the 4 km-long Auli Ropeway in Uttarakhand is India's longest and the world's second-longest (single section) ropeway behind Vietnam's 7,899.9 m long Hòn Thơm cable car, and when completed the under-construction 5.5 km-long Mussoorie-Dehradun Ropeway will be the longest in India. Kashi ropeway is India's first urban ropeway, and world's third urban public transport ropeway behind Bolivia's Mi Teleférico opened in 2014 and Mexico City's Mexicable opened in 2021.

As of 2025, all 36 states and union territories (UT) of India have either existing or planned ropeways, except in the UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry.