Further, 16 manual scavengers have recently been issued notices under the law by a local municipality in Rajasthan's Dholpur district seeking their explanation on carrying excreta.

Wilson pointed out: 'The biggest violator of the law is Indian Railways, which the government does not even factor in when they tell you how many people are into this work.'

Karnataka passed a law way back in the 1970s and, according to figures provided by Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment D. Napolean, the state had only 10 scavengers in this year who had now been rehabilitated.

When the rehabilitation scheme was announced in January 2007, there were 324,000 scavengers in the country, according to official figures. The government says that the maximum number of human excreta carriers, 16,386, are in Orissa, followed by 15,352 in Bihar, 15,213 in Madhya Pradesh, 13,320 Maharashtra and 11,896 in Tamil Nadu.

After 30 in Puducherry and 10 in Karnataka having been rehabilitated, the least number of manual scavengers, 232, are in Jammu and Kashmir.

National capital Delhi has as many as 1,085 of them, while other states with four digit figures include Uttar Pradesh 9,426, Gujarat 8,740, West Bengal 6,708 and Jharkhand 5,750.

The funds for their rehabilitation have been almost tripled from Rs.1.36 crore (Rs.13.6 million) in 2007-08 to Rs. 3.43 crore (Rs.34.3 mn) now.

Ironically, 11 out of the 18 states, which the government lists as having manual scavengers, had in their affidavits in the Supreme Court claimed they did not have a single one and the practice had been eradicated.

The Safai Karamchari Andolan claims that these states profess something else in the apex court, but to the government they report having scavengers to get the funds for eradicating the inhuman practice.

(Darshan Desai can be contacted at darshan.d@ians.in)