NEW DELHI : The ministry of labour and employment has issued advisories on Monday and the last few days asking private and public enterprises to not terminate or lay off casual or contractual staff or to reduce their wages following the country-wide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus In letters to secretaries of central ministries, state chief secretaries and employers’ associations, the ministry asked employers to “extend their cooperation by not terminating employees” in this “challenging situation”.The ministry also said that if any workers take leave during this period, they should be “deemed to be on duty without any consequential deduction of wages”. The same should apply to those working in an establishment that is ordered to shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, the letter said.“The termination of an employee from the job or reduction of wages in this scenario would further deepen the crises and will not only weaken the financial condition of the employee but also hamper their morale to fight the epidemic,” the letter stated.Sharing a copy of one of the letters on Twitter, the labour and employment ministry said, “Seeing the coronavirus pandemic, the advisory has been issued by the Labour ministry to all the employers of public/private establishments to coordinate by not terminating their employees, particularly casual or contractual workers from the job or reduce their wages.”On Monday, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, which disburses monthly pensions to about 65 lakh people, also announced that it had instructed all its field offices to generate and reconcile pension amounts and details of the current month by March 25. The Central PF Commissioner said these details should be sent to banks in advance so the pensions are credited in March itself.