Mumbai,  Maharashtra's academic and cultural capital Pune on Sunday broke ahead of Mumbai to emerge as the country's new "corona capital" with the maximum Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile, with a total tally of 595,865, Maharashtra has now edged past South Africa which has 583,653 cases (no 5 as per Worldometer), to only rank below Russia, India, Brazil and the US.

While Mumbai continues to be at the top in terms of the death toll in India, Pune district now has a staggering 130,606 cases and 3,193 deaths, compared with Mumbai's 128,726 cases and 7,133 fatalities till date.

Pune also has the highest number of active cases, at 41,020, as compared to 17,825 in Mumbai.

For the first time in four days, Maharashtra recorded Covid-19 deaths below the 300-mark besides 11,000 plus new cases, health officials said.

With 288 Covid deaths, the state toll shot above the 20,000 mark to 20,037, while 11,111 fresh cases took the number of infectees to 595,865 till date. Both the toll and the tally are the highest in the country.

There was one death roughly every 5 minutes and a staggering 463 new cases every hour, as per the figures on Sunday.

The state recovery rate increased from 69.82 per cent to 70 per cent, while the mortality rate stood at 3.36 per cent.

A total of 8,837 recovered patients returned home, taking the total number of discharged patients to 417,123 till date - considerably higher than the 158,395 active cases.

Of the total fatalities, Pune again topped the list with 63 deaths, followed by 47 in Mumbai, 36 in Kolhapur and 29 in Thane.

There were also 16 deaths in Nagpur, 13 in Sangli, 10 in Ahmednagar, nine in Dhule, eight each in Nashik and Satara, seven in Jalgaon, six each in Raigad and Solapur, four each in Palghar and Aurangabad, three each in Ratnagiri, Nanded, and Buldhana, two each in Osmanabad, Akola, and Amravati, and one each in Parbhani, Latur, Beed, Bhandara, Gondia, and Chandrapur, besides one from another state.

Dropping below the 50 plus level for the third consecutive day, Mumbai's toll rose to 7,133 and the number of corona cases increased by 1,010 to 128,726.

Of the state's eight divisions, the MMR (Thane division) continues to see deaths spiral and cases pile up, with the fatalities shooting up by 86 to 11,540 and fresh 3,105 cases taking the tally to 287,298.

Standing in the third position, Thane district had 113,944 cases with the death toll at 3,329.

With 77 more fatalities, the Pune division's toll stands at 4,043 and the case tally zoomed up with 3,553 new cases to 152,292.

Nashik division has recorded 1,695 fatalities and 63,463 cases, followed by Aurangabad division with 761 deaths and 24,043 cases, Kolhapur division with 699 fatalities and 23,695 cases, Latur division with 477 fatalities and 15,300 cases, Nagpur division with 393 deaths and 16,798 cases, followed by Akola division with 369 fatalities and 12,418 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine for Corona increased to 10,53,897, while those in institutional quarantine increased to 38,203.