Representational.
The death toll climbed to 4,58,186 with 446 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 23 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 126 consecutive days now.
The active cases comprise 0.46 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.20 per cent, the ministry said.
A decline of 2,283 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,36,55,842, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.34 per cent.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.13 per cent. It has been less than two per cent for last 27 days. The weekly positivity rate was also recorded at 1.18 per cent. It has been below two per cent for the last 37 days, according to the ministry.
The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 106.14 crore.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 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.
The 446 new fatalities include 358 from Kerala and 26 from Maharashtra.
Kerala has been reconciling Covid deaths since the past few days.
A total of 4,58,186 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,40,196 from Maharashtra, 38,071 from Karnataka, 36,097 from Tamil Nadu, 31,514 from Kerala, 25,091 from Delhi, 22,900 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,126 from West Bengal.
The ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.
"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.
Meanwhile, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 246.3 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.99 million and vaccinations soared to over 6.94 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Sunday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and the total number number of vaccine doses administered stood at 246,367,237, 4,994,637 and 6,947,883,074, respectively.
The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 45,949,951 and 745,665, according to the CSSE.
In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 34,260,470 cases.
The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (21,804,094), the UK (9,062,710), Russia (8,338,053), Turkey (8,009,010), France (7,262,178), Iran (5,916,211), Argentina (5,288,259), Spain (5,011,148), Colombia (5,000,677), Italy (4,767,440), Germany (4,594,059), Indonesia (4,243,835) and Mexico (3,802,287), the CSSE figures showed.
Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (607,694), India (457,740), Mexico (287,951), Russia (233,063), Peru (200,197), Indonesia (143,388), the UK (140,981), Italy (132,074), Colombia (127,258), Iran (126,126), France (118,612) and Argentina (115,942).