New Delhi, Apr 6 (IANS): The elders in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday urged the government to provide alternate employments to manual scavengers while demanding stern actions against private contractors who hire them illegally.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan said that recently three people died while engaging in the manual scavenging and one who went inside to save them also lost his life.

"The Manual Scavengers Rehabilitation Act 2013, disallows all kinds of employment that engages practice of removing human excreta manually. As per the National Commission for Safai Karmcharis data, one manual scavenger dies in every two days in the country. So far, as many as 1,470 manual scavengers have lost their lives in past two years," she said.

This, she said, happened due to lack of proper rehabilitation and they are forced to return to manual scavenging in a very inhuman condition for a meagre salary. "Therefore, it is necessary to provide alternative opportunities for them," she added.

Speaking on the issue, the DMK lawmaker T. Siva said that on March 10, three manual scavengers died while cleaning the septic tank in Mumbai. He also said that despite having a law disallowing this, the private contractors hire them, so, there should be strict actions against them.

Shiva also said that these people go to the sewers or septic tanks without any safety gear and they die because of inhaling toxic fumes. "Action should also be made against the law enforcing agency who failed to prevent these accidents".

The other Members also got associated with this issue.