India saw a single day rise of 44,643 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,18,56,757, while the active cases registered an increase for the third consecutive day, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

The death toll climbed to 4,26,754 with 464 fresh fatalities.The active cases comprise 1.30 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.36 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

An increase of 3,083 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.As many as 16,40,287 tests were conducted on Thursday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 47,65,33,650.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.72 per cent. It has been less than three per cent for the last 11 days.The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.41 per cent, according to the ministry.The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,10,15,844 and the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.