Bangladesh's central bank on Tuesday asked all the state-owned commercial banks to suspend agricultural loan recovery activities in the country's southern cyclone-hit coastal areas for next one year.

"It has been decided that the loan recovery activities will remain suspended for next one year to help farmers mitigate their losses," a central bank circular was quoted by online report of leading English-language newspaper The Daily Star as saying.

The Bangladesh Bank circular was issued on Tuesday following a cabinet decision on the issue on Monday as the cyclone Aila which hit the country's southwestern coast on May 25 caused massive crop damage.

The circular said the banks would ensure that the farmers do not face any harassment in this regard and the banks' own "complain and loan supervision cell" would regularly monitor the situation, according The Daily Star.

In a separate circular, Bangladesh Bank said the cyclone also caused massive damage to the shrimp farming in the southwestern region and asked the state-owned commercial banks to reschedule loans of the affected farmers through relaxing the down payment conditions, the newspaper said.

It also asked the banks to send their senior executives to the affected areas to get a spot account and give fresh loans accordingly.

The central bank asked the banks to ensure that the farmers would not face any harassment in getting the loans.

According to the Food and Disaster Management Ministry, cyclone Aila claimed at least 179 people's lives and left more than 3.4 millions people affected in some 11 coastal districts.

Standing crops on some 400,000 hectares of farmland were damaged either completely or partially while thousands of the shrimp farms in the southwestern region, the country's major shrimp growing area, were washed away by tidal surge triggered by the cyclone.

(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2009)