NEW DELHI, March 15 (Xinhua) -- India's COVID-19 tally rose to 11,385,339 on Monday as 26,291 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours, said the latest data from the federal health ministry.

The number of daily COVID-19 cases registered in past 24 hours are the highest this year so far.

According to the official data, the death toll mounted to 158,725 as 118 COVID-19 patients died since Sunday morning.

There are still 219,262 active cases in the country, while 11,007,352 people have been discharged so far from the hospital after medical treatment.

There was an increase of 8,718 active cases during the previous 24 hours as the south-western state of Maharashtra witnessed an increase of 7,709 cases while the northern state of Punjab saw an increase of 634 cases.

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. Till a few weeks ago, the number of daily cases 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 were 9,304 registered on June 4, 2020.

January 16 was a crucial day in India's fight against the pandemic as the nationwide vaccination drive was kicked off during the day. So far nearly 30 million people have been vaccinated across the country.

Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, as more than 227 million tests have been conducted so far.

As many as 227,407,413 were conducted till Sunday, out of which 703,772 tests were conducted on Sunday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday.

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 the past several months. As many as 407 new cases and two deaths were registered in the national capital through Sunday.

So far as many as 10,941 people have died in the national capital due to COVID-19, confirmed the Delhi's health department.

Two types of vaccines are being administered to the people in India. While the "Covishield" vaccine, made by the "Serum Institute of India (SII)", was supplied to all states, and the "Covaxin" vaccine, made by the "Bharat Biotech International Limited", was supplied to only 12 states.