Consciousness goes beyond the realm of just being alive. Being conscious entails the ability to relate profitably with the environment, not just being alive.
Rakesh, I think that to be conscious is different from being alive. To be alive means to be made up of molecules based on DNA replication, be conscious means to be able to experience the world.
This is the state of consciousness which defines the life, we feel alive when conscious only. However, levels of consciousness differ for different life forms. Life and consciousness are the manmade definitions and defined differently in different societies and cultures. In my view, we either live in all live world or all dead world and sometimes confused due to our so-called consciousness.
It seems, there is difference between consciousness and its expression. Consciousness is universal/one, and its expressions are uncountable. Life is one such expression of consciousness.