Topi () is a town in the eastern part of the Swabi District of

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Northern Pakistan, northwestern region of the country, Khyber ...

province of

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. The administrative division of Topi unfolds into two Union councils: Topi East and Topi West. Notably, the

Tarbela Dam Tarbela Dam (, ) is an embankment dam, earth-filled dam along the Indus River in Pakistan, Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It is mainly located in Haripur Tehsil. It is about from the city of Topi, Pakistan, Swabi KPK, northwest of Isla ...

, largest earth-filled dam in the world, is located only east of Topi.

Geography

Topi is located in the eastern part of the Swabi District. It is also situated to the west of the

, the world's largest earth filled dam.

Tarbela Dam

Tarbela Dam is the largest

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

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 (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s of electricity accounting for 40 percent of the Water and Power Development Authority's total power output as of 1980. It is at located at a narrow spot in the

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

valley, named after the town of Tarbela. Tarbela Dam is located partially in the

Swabi Swabi (; ) is a city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located near the bank of the Indus River. It is the 73rd largest city of Pakistan and eighth largest in the province in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Swabi is also a major city in ...

district (Topi) and partially in the Haripur district 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 above MSL and Minimum Operating Elevation is 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 Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...

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

Shyok River The Shyok River (sometimes spelled Shayok) is a major tributary of the Indus River that flows through northern Ladakh in India and into Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan. Originating from the Central Rimo Glacier in the eastern Karakoram, it runs f ...

, joining near

Skardu Skardu (, Tibetan script: སྐར་མདོ, ) is a city located in Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan in the disputed Kashmir region. The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kas ...

, and the

Siran River Siran Valley is a valley situated near the banks of Siran River in Pakhli, Pakhli region of Mansehra District, District Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Swati tribe, Swati is the biggest landlord family of this valley. Siran valley consi ...

near Tarbela.

Ghazi-Barotha Hydropower Project

The

Ghazi-Barotha Hydropower Project Ghazi-Barotha Hydropower Project () is a 1,450 MW run-of-the-river hydropower project on the Indus River in Pakistan. It is located about west of Attock in the Punjab province. Construction of the project began in 1995. It consists of five ...

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 Ancient Greek -, "water"), also known as water power or water energy, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, ...

connected to the

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 the then president General

Pervez Musharraf Pervez Musharraf (11 August 1943 – 5 February 2023) was a Pakistani general and politician who served as the tenth president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008. Prior to his career in politics, he was a four-star general and appointed as ...

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 (), colloquially known as WAPDA, is a Pakistani government-owned public utility agency maintaining hydropower and water in Pakistan, although it does not manage thermal power plants. WAPDA include ...

(WAPDA), the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank to promote social and economic development in Asia. The bank is headquartered in Metro Manila, Philippines and maintains 31 field offices around the world. The bank was establishe ...

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 ...

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 27 member states. It is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt sol ...

and

Islamic Development Bank The Islamic Development Bank (, abbreviated as IsDB) is a multilateral development finance institution that is focused on Islamic finance for infrastructure development and located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There are 57 shareholding member st ...

. 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, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by pop ...

, 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.

Demographics

Population

As of the 2023 census, Topi had a population of 74,867.

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 (; ; 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 vicinity ...

(GIKI), named after

Ghulam Ishaq Khan Ghulam Ishaq Khan (20 January 1915 – 27 October 2006), commonly known by his initials GIK, was a Pakistani bureaucrat, politician and statesman who served as the seventh President of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993. He previously served as Chairm ...

, 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