Mandi Gobindgarh is a town and a municipal committee in Fatehgarh Sahib district in the Indian state of Punjab. It is also sometimes referred to as Steel Town or simply "Loha Mandi" ("Iron Market"), because of a large number of steel mills and factories. This town is famous not only in India but abroad also for the large number of forging and foundry units. Also the municipal committee of this town is one of the richest in whole Punjab.The local tradition which was authenticated by the SGPC holds that the sixth Sikh Guru Shri Guru Hargobind Sahib stayed for 40 days during 1646, at the bank of a big sarovar known as 'Barhi Dhab'. He was accompanied by his followers and warriors. A skirmish occurred between Guru Sahib`s men and a contingent of the Mughal forces. In the clash, the weapons of Guru Sahib's men got damaged. His men pleaded before Guru Sahib that not even a tiny tissue of steel was available in the area for the repair of their weapons, how could they fight further. Guru Sahib smilingly said "Some day this place will be a big steel-producing centre in the country, where you say, no steel is available for repair of your weapons". A magnificent Gurdwara in the holy memory of the Guru Hargobind Sahib is situated near the railway station. The place known as 'Barhi Dhab' then became known as Gobindgarh after the name of Guru Hargobind ji. The sagacious Maharaja Hira Singh of Nabha in whose territory Gobindgarh then lay, sowed the seeds of industry by starting some industrial units in this town in 1902. This lead was followed by Maharaja Partap Singh who took some special measures for the industrial development of the town. Accordingly, Gobindgarh was declared a free trade zone for steel in 1928. Thereafter it began to make tremendous progress in steel business. Land was made available to local blacksmiths at nominal rates in early 1940. This move led to establishment of a number of workshops on both sides of the G.T.Road at Gobindgarh. This was the nascent stage of development of the 'steel town'. This was originally a walled town with four gates. One was near Modi Mills, another was near Munilal Om Prakash, the third near the present main post office and the fourth near Krishna Mandir. All these gates used to be closed by sunset till 1950. After 1950, the gates were demolished one by one. This town is a Sub-Tehsil of Distt. Fatehgarh Sahib, which is also known as the Steel Town of India.
