Mumbai, Nov 4 (IANS): Maharashtra's Covid-19 deaths remained above the 100-mark, but infections dropped and the recovery rate improved, with a whopping 7.38 lakh freed from home quarantine, health officials said here on Tuesday.

The state witnessed 120 deaths on Tuesday, against 104 fatalities reported on Monday, taking the state's death toll to 44,248.

The state recorded 4,909 fresh cases - much lower than the peak single-day tally of 24,886 reported on September 11 - as the state's tally jumped to 16,92,693 cases till date.

The state's recovery rate increased from 90.31 percent to 90.46 percent, while the current mortality rate stood at 2.61 percent.

Simultaneously, another lot of 6,973 fully recovered patients returned home - higher than the fresh infections for the day - taking the total number of recoveries to 15,31,277 till date, much higher than the 116,543 active cases currently present in the state.

As per Tuesday's figures, there was one death roughly every 12 minutes and 205 new cases added every hour to the state's tally. Twelve districts, including Aurangabad, notched zero fatalities, after including the reconciliation of deaths in several districts, including Mumbai.

Of the 120 deaths declared on Tuesday, Pune led the chart with 19 fatalities, followed by 15 in Mumbai, 12 each in Thane, Sangli and Latur, 6 each in Solapur, Satara, Jalna and Bhandara, 4 each in Nashik and Nagpur, 3 in Osmanabad, 2 each in Ahmednagar, Hingoli and Nanded, and 1 each in Raigad, Sindhudurg, Parbhani, Beed, Buldhana, Washim, Wardha, Gondia and Chandrapur.

Remaining in the sub-50 range for the third day this month, Mumbai recorded a low of 15 fatalities, taking the city's death toll to 10,323, while the number of corona cases shot up by 746 to 259,857.

Of the total 8 circles, Mumbai circle's (MMR, comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) fatalities shot up by 28, but owing to a reconciliation of the deaths, the toll dropped to 17,832, and with another spike of 1,492 new infectees, the total cases zoomed to 587,855.

With another 31 fatalities, the Pune circle's (comprising Pune, Solapur and Satara districts) death toll zoomed to 9,675 and the daily infections increased by 951 to 428,383.

Nashik circle has so far recorded 4,300 deaths and 227,043 cases, followed by Kolhapur circle's 3,724 fatalities and 109,637 cases, and Nagpur circle's 3,627 deaths and 151,061 cases.

Latur circle has till now recorded 2,077 fatalities and 69,748 cases, Aurangabad circle had 1,585 fatalities and 63,488 cases, followed by Akola circle's 1,277 deaths and 53,287 cases.

The number of people sent to home quarantine plummeted dramatically by 738,114 - from 25,33,780 to 17,95,666 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 12,195 to 11,969 on Tuesday.