Mumbai: A day after slight dip, COVID-19 cases shot up again in Maharashtra on Tuesday with the state reporting its highest ever death total with a surge in the number of active cases.

The state's fatalities touched a new peak of 519 on Tuesday. With this, the state's overall death total shot up to 61,343, the worst in India. After a record high of 68,631 new cases on Sunday, Maharashtra on Tuesday registered 62,097 new cases, up from Monday's 58,924, taking its caseload to 39,60,359.

On a positive note, new cases in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, went down from 7,381 on Monday to 7,192 on Tuesday - as its overall tally increased to 594,059, 16 days after the city had reported its highest daily surge of 11,206 cases on April 4. With 34 fatalities, the total deaths in Mumbai went up to 12,446, the highest in a single city in India.

On the brighter side, a total of 54,224 fully recovered persons returned home, taking the total number of recoveries to 32,13,464, while the recovery rate slightly gone up from 81.04 per cent on Monday to 81.14 per cent now.

The fatality rate again dropped from 1.56 per cent a day earlier to 1.55 per cent on Tuesday, and the number of active cases increased to 683,856. Of the day's 519 total fatalities due to the contagion, Solapur led the chart with 58 deaths, followed by 51 in Palghar, 50 in Nashik, 34 in Mumbai, 31 in Pune, 28 in Nanded, 26 in Ahmednagar, 23 in Nagpur, 19 in Aurangabad, 17 in Dhule, 16 each in Raigad, Nandurbar, Beed and Bhandara, 14 in Thane, 13 in Amravati, 12 in Osmanabad, 11 in Sangli, 9 in Latur, 8 each in Sindhudurg, Wardha and Chandrapur, 7 in Jalgaon, 6 each in Parbhani, Akola and Gondia, 4 in Satara, 2 each in Kolhapur and Washim, besides 2 outsiders.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home isolation increased from 37,43,968 on Monday to 38,76,998 now, while those shunted to institutional quarantine went up from 27,081 to 27,690 on Tuesday.

MINISTERS DEMAND COMPLETE LOCKDOWN

All Maharashtra ministers on Tuesday demanded that a complete lockdown should be enforced in the state in view of the bolting COVID-19 cases and deaths, Health Minister Rajesh Tope said.

"We have all requested CM Uddhav Thackeray to declare a total lockdown from Wednesday 8 pm. Now the final decision will be taken by him," Tope told media persons after a cabinet meeting.

The ministers' demand came in the wake of the unceasingly worsening COVID-19 situation in the state and hours after the government fastened a daily 20-hour curfew, with essential buying restricted to only four hours daily.

NEW TIMINGS FOR SHOPS

Tightening rules further, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday pronounced that all essential buying of food items shall be permitted for only four hours daily for the next 10 days in order to break the chain of the infection.

In a tough order on Monday, the government said that all groceries, vegetable shops, fruit vendors, dairies, bakeries, confectioneries, all types of food shops including those selling chicken, mutton, poultry, fish and eggs, can remain functional only between 7 am to 11 am daily.

The order will also cover shops related to agriculture implements and farm produce, pet food, shops related to materials for impending rainy season for individuals and organisations, said the order by Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte.