New Delhi, Aug 21 (IANS): With 68,898 new Coronavirus infections in 24 hours, India tally mounted to 2,905,823 on Friday, while the death toll climbed to 54,849 with 983 more fatalities, said the Health Ministry.

Out of the total cases, recoveries have crossed the 20 lakh-mark and surged to 21,58,946 with 62,282 more people recuperating in the past 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to nearly 74.30 percent. The actual caseload of the country is the active cases, which currently stands at 6,92,028.

India's journey to over 29 lakh cases has taken over 200 days since the emergence of the first case on January 30. On July 17, the country logged 10 lakh cases, which then doubled to 20 lakh in 20 days on August 7 and added more than nine lakh cases in just 14 days.

Notably, the case fatality rate, which is the proportion of people who die from the disease among individuals diagnosed, has dropped to 1.89 percent, the Ministry said. As many as 8,05,985 samples were tested on Thursday.

India, with the third-highest number of Coronavirus cases in the world, has eight states where the number of cases is higher than one lakh each and account for 77.87 percent of the total cases. It includes Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal and Bihar.

Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state with a total of 6,43,289 cases and 21,359 deaths; followed by Tamil Nadu with 3,61,435 cases and 6,239 deaths. It is followed by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal and Bihar.

On the global front, India continues to be the third worst-hit after the US with 55,73,501 cases and 1,73,114 deaths, followed by Brazil with 35,01,975 infections and 1,12,304 deaths.