New Delhi: Olympic heroes, boxer Vijender Singh and wrestler Sushil Kumar, along with four-time world champion woman pugilist MC Mary Kom, were on Saturday conferred the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award here.

For the first time in the history of national sports awards, three sportspersons were individually bestowed India’s highest sporting honour, which comes with an enhanced cash prize of Rs 7.5 lakh and a newly-designed statuette.

It was also a red letter day for 15 other sportspersons, who received the Arjuna award from President Pratibha Patil at the Ashok Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Prominent among them were paddler Poulami Ghatak, cricketer Gautam Gambhir, shuttler Saina Nehwal, and chess player Tania Sachdev.

Like the Khel Ratna winners, Arjuna awardees also got a newly-designed statuette, along with citations and an enhanced cash prize of Rs 5 lakh each.

Saina’s mentor Pullela Gopichand, India’s assistant boxing coach at the Beijing Olympics Jaidev Bisht and Sushil’s coach Satpal Singh were among the four Dronacharya awardees.

The Sports Ministry also instituted a new award this year, the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar, which was shared by Tata Steel Limited and the Railways Sports Promotion Board in different categories.

“It is a great honour. I feel proud and happy that the government is giving an award to Tata Steel for taking sport to the community. This award has infused confidence in us to strive harder and nurture more talents and give the country more international sport persons,” Tata Steel managing director B. Muthuraman said.

Asked if Tata would like to venture in some other sports, he said: “We have this ambition of starting a hockey academy in Jamshedpur. Hockey is a game which is in the nature of Indians and I am sure we can excel in that.” (agencies)