One of the longest tea garden strikes in West Bengal has ended with workers and managements finally agreeing on a three-year roadmap on wage revision.

The 15-day strike ended close to midnight Monday after a marathon tripartite meeting between the state government, the workers and the management thrashed out the agreement.

With negotiations repeatedly failing since the strike began on July 11, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sat through most of the meeting to ensure its success.

"The tea gardens will reopen from Tuesday and the arrears will be paid within a week," a relieved state Labour Minister Mohammed Amin told reporters late Monday night.

The strike caused losses of about Rs.1.5 billion ($34.5 million) to the industry, Indian Tea Association Chairman C.K. Dhanuka said Tuesday.

According to the agreement, the wage revision will ensure that workers earn Rs.8 more per day at the end of next three years in instalments of Rs.2.5 each for the first two years and Rs.3 in the third year. This is effective from April 1, 2005.

Thus, from the present Rs.45.90 per day, the wage would increase to Rs.53.90 at the end of third year (2007), Amin said.

He said incentives had been fixed at Re.1 against the earlier 50 paise for plucking six kg of tea leaves above the standard tasking of 24 kg.

The existing plucking task has also been reduced giving workers a reprieve from their current workload. Henceforth, workers would not be penalised for failing daily targets, but would be assessed on weekly basis.

The managements also got a waiver with its stance of not paying any arrears of the past 27 months being upheld. The workers would be only paid a lump sum of Rs.250 each as additional wages for the past three months.

Nearly 500,000 tea workers in 346 North Bengal tea gardens - under the banner of Left-backed Coordination Committee for Plantation Workers (CCPW) - had struck work demanding a revision of wages since the previous wage scale expired March 31, 2003.

The CCPW strike was supported by Defence Committee for Plantation Workers' Rights in the Dooars areas of north Bengal and the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF)-affiliated Himalayan Planters Workers' Union in Darjeeling district.