India's men and women cricket teams will be paid the same appearance fees to represent their country.
Mithali Raj Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The agreement will see women's players at international level receive the same match fees as men across all formats - $31,000 (NZ dollars) for tests, $12,500 for one-day internationals and $6200 for Twenty20 internationals.
"We are implementing pay equity policy for our contracted BCCI women cricketers," BCCI secretary Jay Shah said.
"The match fee for both men and women cricketers will be same as we move into a new era of gender equality in Indian cricket."
Indian women's cricketers currently earn $8300 rupees for test appearances and $2100 for T20s and ODIs, and also play less cricket than their male counterparts.
Shah did not say whether there would be changes to the contract system for women.
Under their current annual contracts, women cricketers in the highest bracket earn around $100,000, while Grade B players take home $62,000 and Grade C, $21,000.
Men in the Grade A+ bracket are paid $1.5 million, with those in Grades A, B and C taking home $1 million, $620,000 and $210,000 respectively, meaning the lowest graded male cricketers still earn twice as much as top-tier women cricketers.
India's women's team is ranked fourth in both the ODI and T20I rankings and beat Sri Lanka in the final of the Asia Cup this month to claim a seventh title.
Former India women team captain Mithali Raj hailed the announcement on Twitter as "historic".
"The pay equity policy along with the (Women's Indian Premier League) next year, we are ushering a new era for women's cricket in India," Raj wrote.
In July, New Zealand Cricket and the country's players' association signed a five-year deal that will see male and female cricketers receive equal pay.
In 2017, Cricket Australia gave contracted women the same base hourly pay rate as men in a five-year collective bargaining agreement.
Earlier this year, the BCCI said a fully fledged women's IPL could begin as early as next year.
-Reuters
