WASHINGTON, Nov. 20—Officials at the Agency for International Development are weighing a multimillion‐dollar program to try to persuade East Pakistani refugees in India to go back voluntarily to East Pakistan in return for housing and other material benefits.

Maurice J. Williams, the agency's Deputy Administrator and a specialist on Indian‐Pakistani affairs, said in an inter view yesterday that such inducements might start a million refugees moving back into East Pakistan. Other refugees might follow later, he said.

Congressional sources said that a program involving United States funds to induce Pakistani refugees to return home might be approved—but only after close scrutiny. They predicted strong Congressional opposition.

The sources said the Pakistani Government might be expected to welcome any such program as an indirect form of economic aid that would relieve the heavy drain on its own resources.

Tension between Pakistan and India has mounted since March 25 when President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan of Pakistan sent his army to crush a separatist movement in East Pakistan.

Estimates of Refugees

Indian officials contend that more than nine million East Pakistanis have fled to India and that 13,000 are still arriving daily. They say the cost to India this year will exceed $700‐million. The Pakistanis say two million left East Pakistan.

Mr. Williams, who has just returned from his second visit to Pakistan and India since midsummer, said that no cost figures had been worked out for a program of voluntary return. He estimated, however, that it might take $70‐million to $100‐million of the $250‐million that Congress has tentatively earmarked for humanitarian programs in India and Pakistan.

The Administration has still not decided how the proposed $250‐million would be divided between helping the refugees in India, a program directed by Francis L. Kellogg, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Refugee and Migration Affairs, and helping the people of East Pakistan. On President Nixon's orders Mr. Williams supervises the East Pakistani program.

The foreign aid authorization bill, which provides for the $250‐million, is in Senate‐House conference and its future is unclear.

Mr. Williams said that the aid program did not contemplate giving cash grants to re turning Pakistani refugees although a proposal for cash grants was made by President Yahya in an interview Oct. 31 with the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. President Yahya did not specify where the cash would come from.

Aid officials conceded that no final plans could be formulated until the Senate and House agreed on the foreign aid authorization bill. Conferees will meet Nov. 29 to take up the bill.

Mr. Williams said that material inducements would not be sufficient until the refugees became convinced that they would not become victims of Pakistani Army reprisals.

Mr. Williams expressed hope that the Pakistani Army in East Pakistan would improve its relations with the local population. Refugees and newsmen have reported continuing anti Bengali reprisals by the Pakistan Army and a steadily growing guerrilla resistance that is said to control a quarter of East Pakistan.

Yahya's Amnesty

Mr. Williams noted that President Yahya had stated that “each and every Pakistani, whether he be a Moslem or a Hindu or of any other caste or creed, is welcome to return to his home and resume his normal vocation.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the Judiciary sub‐ committee on refugees, said that he was “distressed” to learn that the Nixon Administration was “still trying to find ways of appeasing the Pakistani military regime through new schemes of foreign aid under the guise of humanitarian relief.”

Mr. Kennedy said that a “political settlement between this regime and its Bengali opposition is the only way to put the area on the road to peace and relief.”

Representative Cornelius E Gallagher, Democrat of New Jersey and sponsor of a House approved amendment to the foreign aid bill barring economic and military — but not humanitarian aid to Pakistan pending a political settlement said that he would protest to the aid agency.

“What did the more than 10 million Bengalis flee from?” Mr Gallagher asked in a statement. “Based on the evidence of the past month, will Yahya ever accept the refugees of the Hindu faith who make up the overwhelming majority of the refugees?” Could any amount of money eliminate the memories that caused some of them to walk as far as 350 miles?”