Delhi, May 12
India is to inform the United Nations tomorrow that it will need £140m. a year, the equivalent of the annual total of United States cash aid to India to feed the estimated two million refugees who have crossed front East Pakistan.

The estimate will be handed to the three United Nations representatives who are at present inspecting the hundreds of refugee camps which have been set up on India's eastern borders Mr. R.K. Khadilkar, the Minister for Labour and Rehabilitation, told The Times today.

We will possibly be confronted with the worst refugee problem in history and the Indian economy will not be able to stand the financial burden without international assistance", he said.

"My estimate is based on the present figure of two million people and the £70m. will only suffice for six months of relief operations."

Mr. Khadilkar, who is in charge of relief operations, fears that the number of refugees who are at present flowing into India at about 60,000 a day, might bring the total to five million.

"But the Chief Ministers from the border states are far more pessimistic and they believe that we will eventually have 10 million refugees on our hands", he added.
Mr. Khadilkar said that the figure, quoted by the Government related only to those refugees who had been registered at Government outposts on the border. Hundreds of thousands of other Bengalis had crossed the border unnoticed, according to official reports.

"I fear that millions more might yet cross the border because of the economic conditions in East Pakistan", he said. "The economy has been shattered, the food distribution system bas broken down, and those farmers and labourers in the rural areas who depend on the cash crops, such as jute and tea, for a living, will have nothing.

"We understand that the Army has been confiscating food for its own consumption. This has aggravated the food shortages," Mr. Khadilkar said that the refugee camps threatened India with social problems as well as the task of feeding the occupants.

"We don't have sufficient tarpaulins and tents to go around". he said.. "The rainy season has started and many people have been accomodated in schools, public buildings, and warehouses. Many towns are overcrowded and strains between the local citizens and the refugees are beginning to show."

In the small eastern state of Tripura, the number of refugees from East Pakistan has mounted to 45 per cent of the local population of 140,000 people.

With spiralling prices in the overcrowded border towns the Government fears that clashes might soon break out between local citizens and refugees. Mr. Khadilkar said that he had already received reports from Assam that refugees, who were without shelter in the heavy rains, had pushed their way into local houses.

"What can the Government do?" he said. "We want to move them away from the border to decrease tension there, but no state will have them. They believe that they will never get rid of them and eventually these camps will become the breeding ground for Maoism. Remember the Al Fatah was born in the Palestinian refugee camps."

Many Indians have already pointed out that the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965 cost only a fraction of the amount now allotted to the refugee problem. Many others believe that India should embark upon a military campaign to clear up the instability in East Pakistan.