New Delhi, Mar 12 (IANS): For the second day in a row, India's single day rise on Friday recorded close to 23,000 new Covid-19 cases.

The country on Friday reported 22,885 new Covid-19 cases, 117 fatalities, bringing the national infection tally to 1,13,08,846 while the death toll reached 1,58,306, according to the Union Health Ministry.

For the last three days, the number of fatalities has spiked, which earlier was hovering under 100.

On Thursday, India had reported 22,854 Covid-19 cases and 126 deaths while on Wednesday, 17,921 Covid-19 cases and 133 deaths were recorded.

As per the Ministry's data, there are 1,97,237 active cases at present. Besides, 15,157 patients of Covid-19 were discharged in a day. A total of 1,09,53,303 persons have been discharged so far.

The rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, which had so far looked confined to Maharashtra and Punjab, is now beginning to show in several other states.

States/UTs such as Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh have had very similar growth trajectories in recent weeks.

Delhi on Thursday reported 409 cases, a high not witnessed in over two months.

As the number of Covid-19 cases is rising across the country, the Centre sounded a word of caution for states which are not yet seeing a surge but are at the threshold.

Niti Aayog (health) member V.K. Paul on Thursday said that the situation of Maharashtra is worrying as part of the state is going back to strict lockdown. But Maharashtra is not the single reason for concern.

"Would like to caution Delhi-NCR, Gurugram, part of Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad too some extend. These areas are seeing a slight rise in the number of cases," Paul said adding that the pandemic is not over yet.

The Ministry also informed that 7,40,345 samples were tested on Thursday. The cumulative tests done by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so far stands at 22,49,98,638.

So far, 2,61,64,920 doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for 'Covishield' and 'Covaxin'.