The Bangladesh Bank has asked the scheduled banks to suspend recovery of principal loan amount for one year and interest for six months from the poultry sector. The directive was made to give the industry, badly hit by bird-flu scare, a breathing space to recoup the losses. The banks can relax rescheduling of down payment according to the bank-client relationship and provide fresh loans to entrepreneurs, said a central bank circular issued Tuesday. It also asked the banks to make sure that poultry entrepreneurs are not harassed in getting loans. The bird flu scare and subsequent culling of fowls across the country pounded a loss of about Tk 5,000 crore on the industry that flourished over the years, according to an assessment of the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Association. About 4 to 5 million people are directly and indirectly involved with the sector.