Coal India Ltd. on Oct. 10 signed a five-year national wage agreement with worker unions, granting wage hikes to the state-owned company's 298,000 workers.

According to a stock exchange filing issued the same day, the increase will cost Coal India 56.67 billion Indian rupees per annum, will apply retroactively from July and will be effective until the end of June 2021.

The deal ended months of negotiations, Bloomberg News reported. In August, union representatives reportedly claimed that Coal India verbally agreed to give workers a 20% increase in gross salaries.

As of Oct. 9, US$1 was equivalent to 65.44 Indian rupees.