diff --git a/deeplake/enterprise/dataloader.py b/deeplake/enterprise/dataloader.py
index 2ecd98e115..d97ae577ef 100644
--- a/deeplake/enterprise/dataloader.py
+++ b/deeplake/enterprise/dataloader.py
@@ -424,8 +424,9 @@ def sample_by(
 
     def close(self):
         """Shuts down the workers and releases the resources."""
+        if self._internal_iterator is not None:
+            self._internal_iterator = None
         if self._dataloader is not None:
-            self._dataloader.close()
             self._dataloader = None
 
     def pytorch(
@@ -781,8 +782,10 @@ def __iter__(self):
 
         dataset_read(self._orig_dataset)
 
+
         if self._internal_iterator is not None:
             self._internal_iterator = iter(self._internal_iterator)
+
         return self
 
     def __next__(self):
@@ -792,6 +795,9 @@ def __next__(self):
             self._internal_iterator = iter(self._dataloader)
         return next(self._internal_iterator)
 
+    def __del__(self):
+        self.close()
+
 
 def dataloader(dataset, ignore_errors: bool = False) -> DeepLakeDataLoader:
     """Returns a :class:`~deeplake.enterprise.dataloader.DeepLakeDataLoader` object which can be transformed to either pytorch dataloader or numpy.