KARACHI, Pakistan, Sept. 20 —A Karachi newspaper, quoting authoritative sources, said today that the Soviet Union and the United States would probably be asked to take a hand in peace‐making efforts if leaders of India and Pakistan could not be brought together.

The Karachi Star said that the United States and the Soviet Union were already assisting Iran in her efforts at mediation between Pakistan and India.

Pakistan's President, Gen. Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, made a one‐day trip to Teheran last week for conferences with the ruler of Iran, Shah Riza Pahlevi. General Yahya has said that the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, has rejected the idea of a meeting with him.

“It is said that the Indian response to various bold measures taken for the maintenance of peace in the subcontinent by President Yahya Khan has not been encouraging,” the Star said. “If the current efforts by the Shah of Iran for arranging a Pakistan‐India summit meeting fail,” the paper said, “the responsibility for the preservation of peace in this area will shift onto the shoulders of the world's big four powers.”

The newspaper did not specify the “big four” powers. Presumably, they are the United States, the Soviet Union, China and Britain.

Border clashes between Indian and Pakistani infantry and artillery units along the frontier with East Pakistan have become increasingly serious.

The Pakistani Government is now issuing what amounts to a war communique in which a dozen or more enemy dead are claimed nearly every day. Western diplomats discount the possibility of a meeting between President Yahya and Prime Minister Gandhi, on the grounds that such a meeting would probably involve loss of face for one side.

A major issue between Pakistan and India is the Indian insistence that Pakistan achieve a “political solution” to its dispute with separatists in East Pakistan. While India has not gone so far as to extend diplomatic recognition to a Bangla Desh (Bengali Nation) state, she has called for maximum autonomy, if not absolute independence, for East Pakistan.

The New Delhi Government says that the crush of refugees from East Pakistan into India has endangered India's economy and peace and that the refugees must be given every inducement to return home.

Pakistan insists that whatever political solution is found for East Pakistan, it must be the exclusive business of the Islamabad Government and not a subject for international discussion. In any case, Pakistan says, the secession of East Pakistan would not be tolerated.

The United States, the Soviet Union and China all fear the possibility of war on the subcontinent and have given Pakistan and India assistance to maintain a balance of power.

China has pledged to help Pakistan against any aggression. Peking's aid to Pakistan has included factories for making weapons and ammunition. Last month the Soviet Union recently signed a friendship treaty with India that was clearly intended as a warning to both Pakistan and China that Moscow's sympathies were with India.

It was announced last week! that major American relief aid! to East Pakistan was to be‐resumed. Diplomatically. Washington seems to be doing all it can to cultivate the friend ship of the Yahya regime.

The Soviet Ambassador to Pakistan, Aleksei A. Rodionov, spent the past week reassuring high Pakistani officials of his country's friendship.

Production Rate Is Down

Meanwhile, the State Bank of Pakistan has confirmed the! fears of economists that natural; disasters and war had largely wiped out economic progress during the last year. Yesterday, the bank, describing Pakistan's financial position up to the end of the fiscal year, June 30, reported that the gross national product had increased only 1.4 per cent. The increase was 6.6 per cent during the previous fiscal period.

Considering that Pakistan's annual population increase is greater than 1.4 per cent, this means there was a real decline in the last year in the percapita productivity of the country.

A series of floods and a cyclone devastated East Pakistan's southern region late last year, ‘damaging the jute and rice crops and killing hundreds of thousands of people.