PETRAPOLE, INDIA.-The continuing heavy influx of Bengali refugees fleeing from the Pakistani Army in East Pakistan is placing a severe strain not only on India's economy but on her social fabric as well, as the presence of the refugees force prices up and wage rates down.

The Indian Government, sympathetic to the Bengali independence movement which Pakistan is trying to crush, says the number of refugees has reached 2.8 million-two million in over-crowded, politically explosive West Bengal State alone. The dally Influx, officials say, is in the tens of thousands.

Resentment among poor Indians, feared for weeks by the (government has come to the surface and promises to worsen as the refugees compete for their jobs, driving the wages down. Simultaneously, prices have risen as scarcities of food and other items have developed. Here in this West Bengal town less than two miles from the east Pakistani border a camp of tarpaulin tents intended to shelter 6,000 refugees is bursting with 10,000.

The Bongaon district, in which Petrapole is situated, generally has a population of about 300,000. Officials say the district has already absorbed more than 260,000 refugees.

The dally wage for farm labor used to be three rupees-about 40 cents. Now, with the extra labor supply, it has fallen to two rupees and, in some cases one. Other kinds of labor have been similarly affected. These people will accept anything for wages became they re being fed in the camp and don t need money for food, said S. R. Das, a retired army major who is commandant of the Petrapole camp. Instead of allowing them to sit idle, we have to let them go out and seek work.

The Government has been trying to encourage the refugees to stay in the camps and off the job market, but it feels it cannot force them to do so. The problem has overwhelmed us, said a high Indian official who asked not to be named.

HOW CAN IT BE HELPED?

Mr. Das, said local people had been getting angry about the refugees, but how can it be helped? Other officials also reported rising tensions, citing inroads on others privacy and the closing of many schools to accommodate the refugees, with the students and their parents becoming restive. Some Indians are complaining that the refugees are better fed than they are.

Though this is a model camp compared with many of the more than 300 that have been set up all along India's 1,360-mile border with East Pakistan, it is unable to provide proper facilities.

The refugees, mostly women and children, touch as they squat or lie down in the tents. Because latrines are inadequate and lack privacy, the refugees are causing a pollution problem in the fields. Bleaching powder has been spread everywhere as a disinfectant.

SOME CHOLERA DEATHS

Refugees are receiving cholera injections. Some cholera cases and deaths have been reported in other camps, though not at Petrapole. But most of the patients in the Petrapole camp's hospital have dysentery. The camp loudspeakers continually blare instructions about proper hygiene, which seem to confuse the refugees.

Since the Pakistani Army began to attempt to crush the East Pakistani secessionist movement on March 26, India has acknowledged her inability to cope with the refugees by herself and has asked for foreign help; so far, the foreign assistance has been small.

India, arguing that the refugees should be an international responsibility, points out that they already outnumber the 1.4 million Palestinian refugees cared for by the United Nations.

Indian officials estimate t,hat the number of refugees could reach 10 million or more and that the annual cost could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yesterday, India, in a diplomatic note to Pakistan-accused Pakistan of a deliberate campaign of terror against the refugees by the armed forces, and asserted that Pakistan is under questionable obligation to facilitate the return of these refugees to their homes. The note also held Pakistan responsible for the cost of sheltering the refugees.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, on a two day tour of refugee camps, visited the Petrapole camp this afternoon. Speaking in Hindi, a language that only a handful of the Bengali speaking refugees can understand, she told them: You have come here poor and hungry, seeking help. Our country is very poor, too, but we will help you as much as we can and we will try our best to get your home.