India's COVID-19 tally crossed Italy on Saturday afterit registered 9,800 cases in the last 24 hours. The COVID-19 tally of Indiareached 2,36,657, according to the health ministry's data.

This is the biggest single-day spike in cases in Indiaand also the third consecutive day when cases registered surpassed the 9,000mark in the country.

A total of 9,887 cases were recorded in the last 24hours, surpassing yesterday's case count — India's biggest single-day spike —of 9,851.

Out of the total number of registered cases in India,1,15,942 are active while 1,14,073 people have recovered after gettinginfected.

The fresh rise in cases has sparked fear among healthexperts who say that India could take another month or more to reach its peak.

Meanwhile, the updated data on the health ministry'swebsite also suggests that there have been 294 deaths in the past 24 hours.

With the fresh increase, India's death toll now standsat 6,642. On Friday, the country recorded around 273 Covid-19 relatedfatalities.

India has now surpassed Italy to claim the sixth spotin the list of countries worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Experts haveexpressed concern over the sharp increase in both cases and deaths.