Chheharta, now a part of Amritsar city, takes its name from a well sunk by Guru Arjan Dev Ji with six Persian wheels working on it, chhe harat.
Six wheels on one well was a substantial piece of infrastructure. The point of it was to water a stretch of country that had no supply, and the Guru's building programme, Tarn Taran, Kartarpur in Jalandhar district, Sri Hargobindpur, Chheharta, was as much civil engineering as religious foundation.
Tarn Taran's tank was dug under the same programme and the town was laid out with a leprosarium attached, one of the earliest institutions of its kind in the region.
Guru Arjan Dev Ji is remembered for the Adi Granth and for his martyrdom. He was also, for twenty-five years, the most active builder of wells, tanks and towns in central Punjab.
Gurdwara Chheharta Sahib stands on the site. A fair is held there at Basant.
The name means six and a quarter, from the coin given at the well dug there, and the well is the origin of the settlement.
The well was made for a tract that had no water. That is the ordinary form of the Guru period foundations: a well, a tank, or a town.
Chheharta is an industrial suburb of Amritsar now, absorbed into the city, with small factories and dense housing.