NEW DELHI: The government on Friday decided to grant commuted leave without medical certificate until April 4 to officials aged above 50 years and having underlying conditions such as diabetes, respiratory problems, renal diseases and other life-threatening illnesses.A DoPT office memorandum said this was decided with approval of the competent authority “to avoid unnecessary burden on the health care system” in view of COVID-19 outbreak.In further decisions aimed at ‘social distancing’ to contain spread of the virus, officials appointed as consultants/advisors post-retirement would be allowed to work from home until April 4 with the permission of respective heads of department, without adversely affecting their consultancy fee/honorarium.As for contractual/outsourced staff, a decision has been taken to allow them to attend office on rotational basis, as was done for Group ‘B’ and ‘C’ employees , without deduction of any wages for their absence from work , up to April 4.