Mangla Dam was built between 1961 and 1967 primarily to increase the amount of water that could be used for irrigation from the flow of the Jhelum and its tributaries. It was constructed pursuant to the Indus Water Treaty and with funding from the World Bank.
The core trench of Mangla Dam is 10,300 feet long and 454 feet high with a reservoir of 253 square kilometres. On its impounding in 1967, the Mangla Dam had an original gross storage capacity of 5.88 million acre feet (MAF).
The secondary function of Mangla Dam was to generate electricity from the irrigation releases through the head of the reservoir. Mangla Dam has the potential to produce 1,000MW of electricity. (What is actually produces is another matter.)
For the newly conceived state of Pakistan, the construction of Mangla Dam was in step with its ambitions to harness the country's enormous agricultural potential and to supply the increasing demand of electricity in accordance with the country's growing industry. For the people of Pakistan Mangla Dam was one of the icons, along with Tarbela on the Indus and the Kaptai of the Chittagong Hills Tracts, of the time euphemistically referred to as the "Decade of Development."
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2:41 AM
Moderate Islamist here
