More than 300,000 tea garden workers in north Bengal Monday went on an indefinite strike demanding higher wages.

Work in some 350 tea gardens in Dooars area suffered, with industry sources pegging the loss at Rs.100 million a day.

Members of the Coordination Committee for Plantation Workers (CCPW) that comprises 18 tea labour unions refused to work, demanding that the wages be revised since the previous scale had expired March 31, 2003.

According to the unions, the tea labourers get a meagre Rs.45.90 every day.

The strike is being supported by another workers' body, the Defence Committee for Plantation Workers' Rights (DCPWR), which announced road and rail blockades in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts.

"We will stop the New Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express July 18," DCPWR convenor Samir Roy said in Siliguri Sunday.

The Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) affiliated Himalayan Planters Workers' Union also has resorted to a blockade in Darjeeling by preventing the despatch of tea consignments from the gardens.

The strike is a culmination of the tea workers' agitation for 27 months over an eight-point charter of demands.