British Mirpuris early 1960s, the Government of Pakistan planned the Mangla Dam, which was to be built in the Mirpur area. Several thousand people had to move. The British then needed workers, mainly for textile factories. Up to 5,000 people from Mirpur (5% of the displaced) left for Britain, and the displaced Mirpuris were given legal and financial assistance by the British contractor that built the dam. Many started working in factories, mostly in the so-called "Black Country" and in Bradford. In some villages of Mirpur, more than half of the people moved to the United Kingdom to settle in the industrial
Mangla Dam stemmed from the seasonal variations in the river flow due to monsoons and the absence of storage reservoirs to conserve the vast amounts of surplus water during those periods of high river discharge. The Mangla Dam was the first of the two dams constructed to reduce this shortcoming and strengthen the irrigation system of the country as part of the Indus Basin Project, the other being Tarbela Dam on River Indus. Mangla Dam was constructed at a cost of Rs. 15.587 billion (US$1.473 billion) with the funding being provided by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The dam