What was going on when I was born?

The Reagan Administration's chief regulator of savings and loan associations said here yesterday that ''the industry is clearly viable'' and added that ''I think it is very unlikely that this Adminstration would be highly interested in a massive subsidy program of any type.'' Richard T. Pratt, the new chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, said that, although most of the nation's 4,581 savings and loan associations were operating at a loss, they ''should look to their own resources and their regulators to get through this period.'' Addressing the annual meeting of the New York Federal Home Loan Bank, he forecast ''a substantial number of mergers'' over the next five years.

Housing starts rose 5.8 percent in March, to a relatively weak annual rate of 1.28 million units, the Commerce Department said yesterday. But the issuance of building permits for future construction across the nation, continuing a slide that began late last year, slipped 3.2 percent. Given rising mortgage interest rates, the slide in new building permits and the relatively low annual rate of new home starts, some industry experts predict weakness in the housing industry in coming months. Effects of High Mortgage Costs The annual rate of housing starts in March was 23.5 percent higher than that of 1.05 million logged in March 1980, the start of a slump in the housing industry that resulted in part from high mortgage costs.

International The prospect of preliminary arms talks on resuming negotiations to limit American and Soviet nuclear weapons in Europe was raised by Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. His aides said that full negotiations were probably months away. (Page A1, Col. 1.) Israeli jets staged raids in Lebanon, striking at several suspected Palestinian guerrilla strongholds. Earlier, two teen-aged Palestinian guerrillas trying to enter Israel by balloon were shot down and killed in a gunfight with Israeli soldiers. (A3:1-3.)

When Claire C. Chasnov, assistant director for A.T.I.C., a French association that buys coal in North America, meets with American coal executives, she typically offers them advice on how to grab a share of the growing export market for coal. ''Gentlemen,'' she says firmly, ''until you get it out of the country, you haven't sold it.'' Coal executives have apparently taken her words to heart. In the past year, there has been a flurry of announcements detailing plans to expand coal-handling installations at ports along the East Coast. New projects have sprung up so quickly that a Government study has already warned of overcapacity in the future.

El Arish in Sinai grows again now that Israelis are gone A2 Soviet blocks Lebanon peace plan at U.N. A3 Polish farmers win backing in Parliament on a union A3 East Germans re-elect Honecker and stress party discipline A4 Bonn braces for violence as leftist hunger striker dies A4 Eight Canadian Premiers offer constitutional plan A7 South Africans seize Bishop Tutu's passport A8 Six African leaders attack Reagan policies A8 Government/Politics South Dakota court backs state in amending $50 million tax error A10 Defense in Abscam case warned against irrelevant testimony B5 General Around the Nation A10 Doctors find 31 former hostages are ''functioning well'' A10 Cedar Rapids patiently waits for U.S. turnaround A14 GOOD FRIDAY Parking - Alternate-side parking suspended. All other rules in effect. Sanitation - Regular collections; no street cleaning. Federal, state and municipal offices -Open. Post offices - Open. Banks - Open in New York City; most closed in New Jersey and Connecticut. Stock and commodity markets -Closed. Transportation - Subways, buses and Conrail normal; some extra trains on Long Island Rail Road. Libraries - Open. Public schools - Closed.

The dollar will be allowed to fluctuate more widely on foreign exchange markets and the Administration will intervene to support it only in emergencies. R.T. McNamar, the Deputy Treasury Secretary, said the U.S. bought $79 million worth of dollars following the shooting of President Reagan to avert any slide in the dollar, but had ended frequent market intervention. At the same news conference, Norman B. Ture, an Under Secretary of the Treasury, said he did not think it ''would be a life or death difference'' if the effective date of a tax cut was made Jan. 1, 1982, instead of July 1, 1981. (Page A1.) Housing starts rose 5.8 percent in March, to 1.28 million units on an annual basis, but building permits fell 3.2 percent, the Commerce Department said. The starts were an improvement over the 27 percent February drop, but the permits rate - coupled with rising mortgage rates - prompted builders to say a housing recovery was unlikely this year. In another report, the Federal Reserve Board said manufacturers operated at 79.5 percent of their capacity last month, up one-tenth of a percentage point from February. (D1.)

Reservoirs serving Jersey City, and Greenwich, Conn., are overflowing and losing millions of gallons of water daily while residents in both water-rationed areas are attempting to conserve it. The daily loss from Jersey City's Boonton Reservoir was put at 30 million gallons, while the Mianus River Reservoir, one of four reservoirs serving Greewich and the neighboring New York state communities of Rye and Port Chester, was reported to be losing between 20 and 30 million gallons a day. Neither system can transfer water to other water-supply companies and the fresh water is being lost to the sea, officials acknowledged. ''We've got a lot of water coming by and going right into the Long Island Sound,'' Joseph Yates, manager of the Connecticut-American Water Company, said by telephone today.

The Market Place column in Busi- ness Day on Wednesday incorrectly stated the stockholdings of William L. Cary in the United States Filter Corpo- ration, Raymond F. Bentele in Mal- linckrodt and the holdings of various in- dividuals in the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. Mr. Cary holds $130.5 mil- lion worth of Filter stock as trustee for Friedrich Flick Industrieverwaltung K.G.a.A., a group of West German companies, and therefore does not share in the dividends. Mr. Bentele holds $104.1 million in Mallinckrodt stock, also as a trustee. No individual owns as much as $100 million in McDon- nell Douglas. The $100 million level was the criterion for the mention of names in the column.

EASTER sets the season. Whatever the temperature or color of sky, winter as a state of mind vanishes, and the festive holiday virtually demands some celebratory activity, preferably in the open air. The possibilities this weekend abound. You can search, explore, gaze, careen, listen and even parade. The Easter Parade is, of course, no parade at all; it is a joyful mid-morning-to-noon meander by thousands of bonneted New Yorkers, and its focus is Fifth Avenue in the area of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Searching activities have to do with eggs. Some 20,000 of them are hidden in Central Park for the ''World's Largest Easter Egg Hunt,'' starting at noon tomorrow. And nearly as many can be found in surprising areas of the Bronx Zoo as part of a shindig called ''The Great Egg Event,'' which starts tomorrow and keeps going for a week - thus including Easter, Passover and the spring vacation of children from public and parochial schools.

Leading members of the Japanese Parliament were told by members of Congress today that Japan would face legislated quotas on auto shipments to the United States, unless their Government cut back on exports. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, told the Japanese politicians that 65 to 70 senators would back a bill that would cut imports to 1.6 million cars annually for three years. Last year's shipments of 1.8 million cars represented 21 percent of the $70 billion American car market. Senator John C. Danforth, Republican of Missouri, one of the sponsors of the quota bill, suggested it might be redrafted at 1.4 million units. He told the Japanese Parliament members that the 1.6-million level now appeared to be too high, following losses of more than $4 billion reported by American auto makers for 1980.

Egypt reduced prices yesterday on various grades of oil it exports by $1 to $3 a barrel, retroactive to April 1. It thus joined the ranks of oil-producing nations that have cut prices in response to the current oil glut.

A strike by Yonkers firefighters that has permitted several blazes to race out of control was joined yesterday by nearly a thousand other city employees, forcing this city of 200,000 residents into a crisis. With some buildings still smoldering from fires Wednesday night, Mayor Gerald E. Loehr obtained a temporary restaining order against the four striking unions, although he refrained from serving it, and asked Governor Carey to send in the National Guard. The Governor did not call out the guard, but sent three state officials to assess the situation. New Talks Expected Robert Gollnick, speaking for the firemen and the other striking workers, said that at 1:15 A.M. today mediators had delivered an ''offer'' that he characterized as a retrenchment from an agreement reached last September. Mr. Gollnick said the city had withdrawn an offer for a 13 percent wage increase over 18 months. ''We're not going to sit down and talk until there is some movement from the city.''