The health ministry raised India's confirmed total to more than 7.17 million cases on Tuesday but said the country was showing a trend of declining daily cases in the past five weeks.

The ministry also reported 706 deaths in the past 24 hours, raising the toll to 109,856.

According to data shared by the health ministry, the average number of daily cases from September 9 to 15 was 92,830.

The average has steadily declined since then, falling to under 73,000 per day in the past week.

Meanwhile, India's testing rate has remained constant, with almost 1.1. million tests being carried out every day.

India, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, is second in the world in total cases, behind only the United States, which has confirmed more than 7.8 million infections.

Australian Associated Press