President of Nepal Bidya Devi Bhandari was on Tuesday morning accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

Bhandari, who is accompanied by a high-level 33-member delegation including Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat and Peace and Reconstruction Minister Sita Devi Yadav, five women MPs and senior officials, arrived in the national capital on Monday evening on a five-day state visit to India.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Bhandari. She was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour.

"Special honours for a close neighbour," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted while announcing her ceremonial welcome.

Later in the morning, she paid her tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

Modi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will call on the visiting dignitary on Tuesday.

Bhandari will call on President Mukherjee and attend a banquet hosted by him.

This is her first foreign tour after assuming office in October 2015. Besides meeting top Indian leaders, Bhandari will also visit Gujarat and Odisha.

She is staying at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi as a state guest.

Bhandari was scheduled to visit India in May last year but then Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli cancelled the visit at the last moment.

The then Nepal cabinet cancelled the visit following political upheaval in the Himalayan nation when Oli's government was nearly toppled by its Maoist ally.