Khushab
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Khushab is a town in Khushab District in the Pakistani province of Punjab.
This is a historical city of province Punjab. Geographically this is quite unique district of Pakistan which has mountains, deserts, lush green harvesting land, lakes and river. SOON valley is one of the most beautiful hill stations of Pakistan. This district is quite rich in natural resources (salt & coal) etc.. People are very hardworking and most of them are associated with farming and agriculture. Khushab is also known for its delicious sweets specially DHODA and PATEESA. Name of this city "Khushab" was given by King Shar Shah Surry on arrival in area. Khushab means "Metha Pani" or Pure Water.
Geographically one third of the district is hilly and is dominated by Awans and other tribes like Joyia (Known as Malik) is one of the major tribe in term of population size of the City. Joyia is sub cast of Rajpoot who migrated to Khushab, who were landlords and some of them were traders.Since there is no agriculture in the area this part of Khushab district is favoured by governments since British times as being a fertile colony for armed services and still majority of the population from this area goes to armed forces.
The other two parts are irrigated lands betweeen Khushab and Quaiadabad and desert area of tehsil noorpur thal.This desert area is the beginning of large desert Thal that continues into thar desert and India's Rajhistan.
As the rest of the Punjab, people have always stayed loyal to governments.Starting in 1980s The disrtict was classified as tax relief zone for the new industies .This led to establishment of lot of Industries including cement,sugar,textiles and so forth.
There is a 50 MWT heavy water reactor in Khushab. The facility is located around 105 km NW from Faisalabad and around 45 km West from Sargodha Air Force Base.
This reactor shows no visible output of electricity generation. This facility is said to produce enough plutonium for 1-4 nuclear weapons each year.
It has around 8 cooling towers located 50-70 metres due east of the main reactor building.
The facility has a heavy water plant on site located around 3 km south of the main reactor building. The heavy water plant is located at 31°59'; 72°11'.
The facility is heavily guarded, with both reactor building complex and heavy water plant having two individual security cordons each over and above the main facility cordon.