Delhi. May 5
The refugees who have crossed the Indo-Pakistan frontier from the ravaged state of East Pakistan, estimated to number 1,800,000 have confronted India with an economic and social problem which has surpassed already the dimensions of the Bihar famine of five years ago, the Indian Government said today.

India also fears that the number of refugees who are crowding hastily established camps near the border might swell to six to seven million in the next few months.

India is paying £300,000 a day for food and other allowances and it is estimated that the refugee problem has cost the country about £10m., the equivalent of about 25 per cent of Britain's annual aid to India, since the civil war broke out in the last week of March.

A Government spokesman said that a number of charitable organizations had offered assistance. "While we recognize and appreciate this effort of good will with gratitude, it is a drop in the ocean and India will have to recognize that the major burden will fall on her own shoulders ", he added.

The Government, he said, would appeal to other countries and world bodies for a multilateral effort to help the refugees. The negotiations for the repatriation of the Indian and Pakistan diplomatic staff from the missions to Calcutta and Dacca have broken down in a stalemate. The flight of two Soviet Ilyushin transport aircraft which were due to fly to Dacca to evacuate Indian diplomats and their families yesterday was cancelled at the last minute last night.

Officials from the Indian Foreign Office claimed today that Pakistan had sabotaged the repatriation plan deliberately to divert the world's attention from East Pakistan to a diplomatic quarrel.

It is said here Pakistan will release the Indian staff in Dacca only after Mr. Mehdi Masud, the newly appointed Deputy High Commissioner in Calcutta, is allowed to interview the large number of Bengali defectors serving at the former mission.
The former diplomats, including Mr. Husain Ali, the former Deputy High Commissioner, are not prepared to meet Mr. Masud individually.

Mr. lqbal Butt, the press attaché for the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, told journalists today that Pakistan had originally put up a plan for repatriation and had proposed that the staff from both missions should be evacuated simultaneously by aircraft from neutral countries on May 3.

Pakistan had, however, asked also that Delhi should give Mr. Masud facilities to interview the defectors "to ascertain whether they wanted to be evacuated or whether they wanted to remain.

"It is our duty to any citizen to establish whether he wants to leave the country or remain here of his own free will or whether he might be under any form of duress". Mr. Butt said.

"Without meeting every single member of the staff who has allegedly decided to remain in India, Mr. Masud cannot be sure of the number of persons who he will have to evacuate."

Mr. Butt reiterated Pakistan's stand that Mr. Masud must be allowed to meet the defectors "privately and individually".

Later an Indian official said that the Bengali defectors had refused to meet Mr. Masud in private and individually. "There is no law under which the Government of India can compel them to do so he added.

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Our Geneva Correspondent writes: Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said today that his office was sending a team to India immediately to assess the needs of the refugees from East Pakistan.