Abstract: Introduction: Despite many awareness programs conducted by the governments and other agencies, there are certain false beliefs among the general public of India towards transmission, prevention and treatment of COVID-19. This study is aimed to assess the knowledge and beliefs of general public of India on COVID-19. Settings and Design: A cross-sectional survey was conducted between 20th March and 15th April 2020. A 17-item questionnaire was developed, validated, and used for the study. The questionnaire was randomly distributed among the public using Google forms. Descriptive analysis was performed to represent the study characteristics, Chi-square test for assessing the associations among the study variables, and logistic regression analysis for identifying the factors influencing the beliefs. Results: A total of 462 participants with a mean (SD) age of 30.66 (11.31) years were responded to the questionnaire. It was found that participants had good knowledge on basic aspects of COVID-19. However, considerable fraction of participants was having false beliefs towards transmission of new coronavirus, and prevention & treatment of COVID-19. It was observed that the participants who were aged 31-60 years and >60 years, education level of intermediate or diploma and high school certificate, and occupation as unskilled worker had more of false beliefs towards COVID-19 compared to their counterparts. Conclusion: The overall knowledge on COVID-19 was good enough among the general public of India, still there is need of education to avoid the false beliefs especially among the people who are elderly, having low level of education, and non-professional workers.