Salehuddin Ahmed. Manag-. ing Director of PKSF. discussed the experiences of 35 officials and five special teams who visited several districts.

He said that the loan repayment instalments, which could not be collected during floods and still remained uncollected, could be deferred for some time . and rescheduled. With a view to kick-starting the financial activities. new loans should be given to micro-credit borrowers.

In case of rescheduling overdue loans, short-time moratorium could be allowed. The factors to be considered for rescheduling and giving fresh loans should be the current loan amount of the borrower, extent of damage caused to him/her etc.

He said if a partner organisation fails to repay any instalment to PKSF because of the flood, it should apply to PKSF for rescheduling with detailed explanations. PKSF will consider this on a cr.se by case basis.

He concluded by saying that the recent flood in Bangladesh had proved a both a challenge and an opportunity for microcredit programmes. The challenge is to recover from the losses due to flood and to bring back the poor people onto the path of sustainable develop-

“The opportunity lies in consolidating and improving the micro-credit programmes • and to bring the poorest of the poor under its coverage.

Abul Hossain Ahmed Bhuiyan, Associate Professor of the Bangladesh Open University. talked about a survey which revealed that of the four million people who were supposed to have received food, 42 per cent of them never heard of VGF cards.

„Data collected from 40 villages indicate that of the total households only 26 per cent received VGF cards.