NEW DELHI, April 1 (Xinhua) -- India's COVID-19 tally rose to 12,221,665 on Thursday as 72,330 new cases were reported from across the country, according to the latest figures released by federal health ministry.

Besides, 459 deaths since Wednesday morning took the death toll to 162,927.

Both the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths in 24 hours in India are the maximum this year so far.

In January the number of daily cases in the country had come down to below 10,000. As many as 9,102 new cases were reported on Jan. 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.