Agartala, Aug. 22: Milkha Singh facilitated a full holiday and Dipa Karmakar a partial one but she still will have to go to take her semester exam tomorrow.

Tripura has declared a holiday for educational institutions on Tuesday to honour Dipa, the first Indian to reach an Olympics gymnastics final.

Such a break may be business as usual in holiday-happy Bengal but it is a big deal in the northeastern state. This is the first time in 56 years since Tripura attained statehood in October 1949 that the state is declaring such a holiday.

However, exams in universities will be held as scheduled. Dipa, who reached Agartala today to a rousing reception, will also take her MA second semester exam tomorrow.

The mix of sporting glory and holidays goes back a long way. Milkha has said that when he became the first Indian to bag a Commonwealth Gold medal in the UK in 1958, an elated Jawaharlal Nehru had sounded him out on what reward he would like. Milkha had sought a national holiday, which was promptly announced by the first Prime Minister.

The Tripura government has also promoted Dipa and her coach Bishweshwar Nandi, both of whom work in the state sports department.

"After Dipa's bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow in 2014, we had given her the post of sports officer and her coach Nandi the post of assistant director. Now Dipa will become an assistant director and Bishweshwar will be promoted to deputy director," chief minister Manik Sarkar, who was the chief guest at the reception, said.

Dipa, whose salary now is Rs 26,000-plus, will earn Rs 32,000 a month after the promotion. Her coach's salary will be Rs 39,000.

A huge crowd was waiting outside the Agartala airport to greet the sporting star and her coach when their plane landed at 8.20am. Such was the turnout that they had to wait inside the lounge till police and paramilitary forces could arrange for their safe passage outside.

Dipa and Nandi were taken in an open jeep to Vivekananda stadium. Frenzied fans lined both sides of the route and frequent halts were made to enable people to garland Dipa and Nandi. The 8km journey took around 2 hours.

Sarkar announced the renovation of the Netaji Subhas Regional Coaching Centre on a priority basis. "Had there been better infrastructure, Dipa could have performed better in the Olympics," he said.

The chief minister thanked Nandi and Dipa's first coach Soma Nandi, who is Nandi's wife, for moulding Dipa into a world-class gymnast.

Dipa, who had told Reuters in Rio that she was "kind of dreading going back empty-handed", apologised to the people for failing to bring home an Olympic medal.

"I am sorry and I beg to be excused for not being able to fetch a medal from Rio but I will do my best and win the medal in Tokyo in 2020," she said today.

She iterated that Indian coaches were the best for Indian sportspersons. "Before going to the Olympics, I was asked by the Sports Authority of India if I needed training under a foreign coach. I had said Indian coaches have a lot of energy to train their students. I am very happy with the coaching of Bishweshwar Nandi," she said.

"The two Olympic medal winners of our country, P.V. Sindhu and Sakshi Malik, have been trained by Indian coaches. They are the best for us though better training infrastructure may be needed."

To thunderous applause from the audience, she ended her speech by saying: "I appeal to all - Save the girl child and encourage the girl child."

Nandi said: "I have told Dipa already that I want to see her on the victory stand in the Tokyo Olympics."

He also sought state-of-the-art sports infrastructure so that many achievers in gymnastics could emerge. He appealed to the dignitaries on the dais to ensure early completion of the renovation at the coaching centre.