The death toll mounted to 159,755 as 197 COVID-19 patients died since Saturday morning.

Both, the number of new cases and deaths registered during the past 24 hours are record high this year. Earlier this week Prime Minister Narendra Modi had expressed concern at the sudden rise in COVID-19 cases, and called for immediate steps to curb a possible second wave of the pandemic in the country.

There are still 309,087 active cases in the country, while 11,130,288 people have been discharged so far from hospitals after medical treatment.

There was an increase of 20,693 active cases during the previous 24 hours, out of which a maximum of 13,446 cases were reported from the south-western state of Maharashtra.

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The number of daily active cases had been on the rise over the past few days, as another wave of COVID-19 looms large in India.

In January the number of daily cases in the country had come down to below-10,000. As many as 9,102 new cases were reported between January 25-26, which was the lowest in the previous 237 days. Prior to that the lowest number of daily new cases is 9,304 registered on June 4, 2020.

So far over 44 million people have been vaccinated in India since the nationwide vaccination drive was kicked off in mid January.

Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, with more than 233 million tests conducted so far.

The national capital Delhi, which has been one of the most COVID-19 affected places in the country, has been witnessing comparatively a lesser number of cases over past several months. As many as 813 new cases and two deaths were registered in the national capital through Saturday.

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So far as many as 10,955 people have died in the national capital due to COVID-19, confirmed the Delhi's health department.