Topi ( ps, ټوپۍ) is a town in the eastern part of the

Swabi District Swabi District ( ps, سوابۍ ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in the Mardan Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It lies between the Indus and Kabul Rivers. Before becoming a district in 1988, it was a tehsil within t ...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. Topi is administratively subdivided into two Union councils: Topi East and Topi West.

Tarbela Dam Tarbela Dam (, ) is an earth-filled dam along the Indus River in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Located mainly in the Swabi district of the province, The dam is about from the city of Swabi, northwest of Islamabad, and east of Peshawar ...

is located east of Topi.

Geography

Topi is located in the east of Swabi District of the Khyber Pukhtoonkwa Province of Pakistan. Topi is located to the west of the

, the world's largest earth filled dam. Tarbela Dam is the largest

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

generation project in Pakistan, producing 3,495

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...

s of electricity accounting for 40 percent of the Water and Power Development Authority's total power output as of 1980.

Tarbela Dam

The

is at a narrow spot in the Indus River valley, named after the town of

Tarbela Tarbela ( pnb, ) or Torbela ( ps, توربېلا) is one of the 44 union councils, administrative subdivision, of Haripur District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The name comes from the words ''tor'' (Pashto for "black") and ''be ...

. Tarbela Dam is located in the

Swabi Swabi ( ps, صوابۍ; ur, ) is a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,Haripur Districts of

. up Tarbela Lake was formed as a reservoir behind a dam The main dam wall, built of earth and rock fill, stretches from the island to river right, standing high. A pair of concrete auxiliary dams spans the river from the island to river left. The dam's two

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure tha ...

s are on the auxiliary dams rather than the main dam. The main spillway has a discharge capacity of and the auxiliary spillway, . Annually, over 70% of water discharged at Tarbela passes over the spillways and is not used for hydropower generation. Five large tunnels were constructed as part of Tarbela Dam's

outlet works A gatehouse, gate house, outlet works or valve house for a dam is a structure housing sluice gates, valves, or pumps (in which case it is more accurately called a pumping station). Many gatehouses are strictly utilitarian, but especially in the ni ...

. Hydroelectricity is generated from turbines in tunnel 1 through 3, while tunnels 4 and 5 were designed for irrigation use. Both tunnels are to be converted to hydropower tunnels to increase Tarbela's electricity-generating capacity. These tunnels were originally used to divert the Indus River while the dam was being constructed. MA hydroelectric power plant on the right side of the main dam houses 14 generators fed with water from outlet tunnels 1, 2, and 3. There are four 175 MW generators on tunnel 1, six 175 MW generators on tunnel 2, and four 432 MW generators on tunnel 3, for a total generating capacity of 3,478 MW. Tarbela Reservoir is long, with a surface area of . The reservoir initially stored of water, with a live storage of , though this figure has been reduced over the subsequent 35 years of operation to due to silting. The Maximum Elevation of the reservoir is 1550 feet (472.44 meter) above MSL and Minimum Operating Elevation is 1392 feet (424.28 meter) above MSL. The catchment area upriver of the Tarbela Dam is spread over of land largely supplemented by snow and glacier melt from the southern slopes of the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

. There are two main Indus River tributaries upstream of the Tarbela Dam. These are the

Shyok River The Shyok River is a tributary of the Indus River that flows through northern Ladakh and enters Gilgit–Baltistan, spanning some . The Shyok River originates at the Rimo Glacier, one of the tongues of Siachen Glacier. Its alignment is very ...

, joining near

Skardu , nickname = , motto = , image_skyline = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Gilgit Baltistan#Pakistan , pushpin_label_position ...

, and the

Siran River Bogarmang Valley is a little-known valley situated in Mansehra District, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Like the neighboring areas, this valley also suffered greatly from the earthquake which hit the region on October 8, 2005. Etymology of th ...

near

Ghazi-Barotha Hydropower Project

The

Ghazi-Barotha Hydropower Project Ghazi-Barotha Hydropower Project ( ur, غازى بروتھا) is a 1,450 MW run-of-the-river hydropower connected to the Indus River about west of Attock in Punjab and east of Haripur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Construction of the proj ...

is a 1,450 MW

run-of-the-river Run-of-river hydroelectricity (ROR) or run-of-the-river hydroelectricity is a type of hydroelectric generation plant whereby little or no water storage is provided. Run-of-the-river power plants may have no water storage at all or a limited amou ...

hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, converting the Pot ...

connected to the

Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...

near Topi. Construction of the project that began in 1995 consists of 5 generators each with a maximum power generation capacity of 290MW. Inauguration of the plant on 19 August 2003 by President General

Pervez Musharraf General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of the ...

also saw the commissioning of the first 2 of the 5 generators i.e. Unit 1 and Unit 2. The last generator was commissioned on 6 April 2004 and the project was completed by that December. It cost US$2.1 billion with funding from Pakistan's

Water and Power Development Authority The Pakistan Water & Power Development Authority (WAPDA; ur, ) is a government-owned public utility maintaining power and water in Pakistan, although it does not manage thermal power. WAPDA includes Tarbela and Mangla dams among its resources. ...

WAPDA
, the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The bank also maintains 31 field office ...

Japan Bank for International Cooperation The , JBIC, is a Japanese public financial institution and export credit agency that was created on October 1, 1999, through the merger of the Japan Export-Import Bank (JEXIM) and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF). JBIC became the in ...

Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau The KfW, which together with its subsidiaries DEG, KfW IPEX-Bank and FuB forms the KfW Bankengruppe ("banking group"), is a German state-owned investment and development bank, based in Frankfurt. As of 2014, it is the world's largest national d ...

European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the EU Member States. It is one of the largest supranational lenders in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solutions ...

and

Islamic Development Bank The Islamic Development Bank ( ar, البنك الإسلامي للتنمية, abbreviated as IsDB) is a multilateral development finance institution that is focused on Islamic finance for infrastructure development and located in Jeddah, Saudi A ...

. About 1,600 cubic meter per second of water is diverted from the Indus River near the town of

Ghazi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ghazi () is an administrative subdivision of Haripur District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's Li ...

, about 7 km downstream of

(3,478 MW). It then runs through a 100 metre wide and 9 metre deep open power channel which is entirely concrete along its 52 km length down to the village of Barotha where the power complex is located. In the reach from Ghazi to Barotha, the Indus River inclines by 76 meters over a distance of 63 km. After passing through the powerhouse, the water is returned to the Indus. In addition to these main works, transmission lines stretch 225 km.

Education sector

The town of Topi is home of the

Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology The Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology ( ur, ; commonly referred as GIKI), is a private research university located in Topi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The institute has a campus that is located in the vici ...

(GIKI), named after

Ghulam Ishaq Khan Ghulam Ishaq Khan ( ur, غلام اسحاق خان; 20 January 1915 – 27 October 2006), was a Pakistani bureaucrat who served as the seventh president of Pakistan, elected in 1988 following Zia's death until his resignation in 1993. He wa ...

, a former President of Pakistan who had served at Topi during his illustrious career as a civil servant.

Notable people

* Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan, a Pashtun educationist and politician, was born in Topi * Bayazid Pir Roshan, the sixteenth century revolutionary Pashtun leader, died in Topi

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Topi, Nwfp Populated places in Swabi District