[1][2] About 1,600 cubic meter per second of water is diverted from the Indus River near the town of Ghazi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, about 7 km downstream of Tarbela Dam (4,888 MW).

[citation needed] In the reach from Ghazi to Barotha, the Indus River inclines by 76 meters over a distance of 63 km.

The feasibility report was prepared in 1993 during the first tenure of Benazir Bhutto's administration and the Government of Pakistan entered into an agreement for the financing and construction of the project on 7 March 1996.

[3] About 1,600 cubic meter per second of water is diverted from the Indus River near the town of Ghazi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa about 7 km downstream of Tarbela Dam (4,888 MW).

A number of countries worked on the project The power house and civil works were constructed by China's Dongfang Electric Corporation; a 51.90 km power channel that took water from the river and then returned it after running it through a battery of Francis turbines was constructed by Italy; turbines came from Germany; and Japan supplied Toshiba generators.

The fuse plug has been provided to pass the extreme flood up to the capacity of Tarbela’s spillway and tunnels equalling 46,200 cumecs.

To operate the power station, water from the Indus is directed to the turbines via a 52 km-long canal and five pressure pipelines, each measuring 10.6m in diameter.

The project has negligible impact on existing groundwater table or quality of water due to complete length of the power channel being concrete-based.

Adding to the benefits, the power channel under drainage system also helped alleviate existing water-logging problems in this part of the region.