Delhi, June 11,—India today announced plans to move 2,500,000 East Pakistan refugees away from bonder areas to 50 new camps with the help of aircraft of the United States, the Soviet Union. Britain and Australia. The scheme quickly met opposition.

The eastern state of Orissa turned down the central Government request to take 30,000 refugees from the north-eastern border states.

The Orissa Government gave no reason for backing out of its tentative agreement to meet the Delhi request.

There were also reports that the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had also refused to take in refugees but Delhi said these two states had not been approached.

Mr Balgovind Verma, Deputy Minister of Labour and Rehabilitation, said the East Bengalis would be moved by air and also by rail to 50 large camps in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Only those free of cholera infection would be taken.

Some of the special refugee trains were already moving people out and big transport planes, including Soviet Antonov 12s and an American C130, were carrying out trial landings at the new camp sites.

Mr -G. Singh Khalon, Rehabilitation Secretary, said that some of the camps were unused airfields with brick and cement barracks. At others “we may have to dump people and get their help when they are there to construct huts”.

He added : “The Government of India has decided the refugees have to be kept, as far as possible, near the borders from where they came, for it is the firm intention of the Government that they should go back as soon as conditions are favourable ”,—Reuter.


Peter Hazelhurst writes from Krishnagar: The massive transit of medical aid into West Bengal appears to have checked the cholera epidemic for the time being, but Indian officials told me today that the number of refugees is so overwhelming that relief workers are not able to dole out rations fast enough.

In many areas where the refugee population has been doubling overnight people have been waiting in queues for three days to receive their weekly ration of rice. In Krishnagar this morning at least one child died of starvation after her frantic parents had waited in a never-ending queue for rations for 48 hours.

This tragic story was confirmed by the young district magistrate of the cholera-affected district of Nadia, Mr D. K. Ghosh. “Her husband had been waiting for rations for three days but what can I do”, he asked me. “The numbers are so great that we just cannot cope any more.

“My planning has gone haywire. In one place we have opened a distribution centre to cater for 10,000 people and I find that my two workers have to hand out rations for 20,000 people.

“We have already discovered the bodies of people who have died of starvation on the way to reception centres. But things are now chaotic here. Thousands of people surrounded my office last night complaining that they had been waiting for food for three days. I told them I was sorry but they would have to wait their turn."