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 releases at the artificial head of the reservoir. The project, though not initially designed as one, also works as a flood control structure by retaining water during the flood-prone season of Monsoon. On December 5, 1971, the dam was damaged due to a bombing raid conducted by the Indian Air Force during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. This was against the international convention that large water reservoirs would not be targeted in war. As a consequence, the hydro project was temporarily out of service. From the data available in 2009, the project had generated 183.551 billion units of low cost