Announcement of Special meeting of India Consortium on October 27, 1971

UI\ 1"1/ 1'B Est\f\!t< F R t) Al\!D DEVELOP~/f ENT 1818 H STREET, N.W., WASHINGTON D. C. 20433 TELEPHONE: EXECUTIVE 3-6360 October 27, 1971 Subject: Special meeting of India Consortium The follo.T.Jing announcement was issued yesterday, October 26, at the World Bank~s European Office in Paris: "A special meeting of the consortium of governments and institutions interested in India's economic development was held in Paris on October 26, 1971 under the chairmanship of the World Bank. It discussed the impact on the Indian economy of the recent large and continuing influx of refugees from East Pakistan and assessed the cost of relief at U.S.$700 million in the • financial year ending March 1972 • The meeting was attended by representatives of the governments of Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, and by representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children's Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Representatives of the governments of Australia and New Zealand attended the meeting as observers. "The meeting heard statements by Dr. LG. Patel, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Govemment of India, and by Mr. Charles Mace, the Deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and considered a report on the cost of refugee relief prepared by the World • Bank. More than 9 1/2 million refugees have entered India by now and the influx is continuing. /mre  Unn. Bank P.R. - Special meeting of • India Consortium - 2 - "Delega_~e~ · expressed deep concern about the situation and its serious consequences for the economic development of India and unanimously recognized the need for special assistance to offset the burden of refugee relief. Members emphasized that assistance for refugee relief should be additional to normal development assistance. Considering the nature of the problem this assistance should pr~ferably be in the form of grants. To prevent drastic cutbacks of development expenditures in India, commitments of special assistance are required urgently and should be in a form which would provide immediate support to the budget of the Indian Govemment and the Indian economy generally. "It was the sense of the meeting that the problem of refugees in India was an international responsibility. The meeting noted that worldwide contributions pledged to date came to over U.S.$200 million. Delegations • urged the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as the focal point of the whole U.N. system to continue his efforts to seek contributions from the international community to cover the cost of relief estimated at U.S.$700 million. The countries represented at the meeting agreed, because of their special interest in India, that they would make efforts to meet a substantial part of the total need. "Several members indicated their willingness to provide substantial new contributions towards the cost of refugee relief and others indicated that the matter was receiving the atte .. .Lon of their gove·mments." - - 0 - •