India has become the world's third country to pass 4mn coronavirus infections, setting a new record daily surge cases on Saturday as the crisis shows no sign of peaking.

The 86,432 new cases took India to 4,023,179 infections, third behind the United States which has more than 6.3mn and just trailing Brazil on 4.1mn.

While the government has eased restrictions in a bid to revive the economy, India now has the world's fastest growing number of cases at more than 80,000 a day and the highest daily death toll at more than 1,000. The country's caseload has gone from 3 to 4mn in just 13 days, faster than the United States and Brazil.

The pandemic is now spreading through rural areas which have poor health facilities but is also resurging in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Maharashtra state, which includes Mumbai, has been at the centre of the crisis in India since a nationwide lockdown was imposed in March. It still accounts for nearly a quarter of the new daily cases across the country of 1.3bn.

Shamika Ravi, an economics professor and former government advisor who has closely followed pandemic trends in India, said that India is "nowhere close" to a peak and Maharashtra must become the "focus" of the campaign against the coronavirus. "There is no controlling Covid-19 in India without controlling the outbreak in Maharashtra," she said on Twitter. "Given its economic significance, Maharashtra will continue to influence the spread of infection elsewhere in the country."

On expected lines, the number of Covid positive cases in Kerala continues to surge and on Saturday it saw the highest number of 2,655 people turning positive. Speaking to the media, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on account of Onam festival relaxation in rules, this was expected "but if compared to the basic indicators of spread with other states, we have done well to keep such indicators below the national average."

"The tests per million reveals Kerala is doing well, when the national average is 2,731, Kerala's figure is 2,168 while in other neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh it stands at 8,479, while in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu it's above 5,000," said Vijayan.

He said of the new cases, 2,433 were local infectees and a cause for worry is while the spread in the capital district costal hamlets has come down, it's not so in the city. At present there are 21,800 active Covid cases in the state .

11 deaths were reported, taking the death toll to 337.

Karnataka registered 9,746 more Covid cases raising the state's tally to 3,89,000 even as 9,102 more patients recovered from the virus, an official said. "On Saturday, 9,746 new positive cases are reported and 9,102 persons have been discharged," said Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey. Bengaluru reported 3,093 more cases raising the city tally to 1,44,000, of which 41,479 were active.

The highest number of coronavirus cases in the southern state were concentrated in Bengaluru. Among other places, Mysuru accounted for 790 infections, followed by Belagavi (473), Davangere (395), Dakshina Kannada (377), Ballari (366), Hassan (347), Shivamogga (346) and Mandya (246). As many as 128 more patients died of the virus increasing the statewide toll to 6,298.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday ended his week-long self-quarantine after testing negative for Covid-19. The chief minister had quarantined himself after coming in contact with two MLAs who had later tested coronavirus positive. He came in contact with the legislators in the Vidhan Sabha on August 28 during a one-day session of the House. Amarinder Singh, who presided over a virtual high-level meeting of Ministers, Congress MLAs and senior officials, said during the interaction that he had got himself tested and was found negative.

This was the third time the chief minister had got himself tested for coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic.