LAHORE: The Basant Portal 2027 opens for kite manufacturers in Lahore today, launching the first formal step of the licensing cycle for a festival still more than six months away.
Deputy Commissioner Lahore Captain (retd) Muhammad Ali Ijaz confirmed the September 5 start date in a post on X, saying a permit has been made mandatory for manufacturing kite-flying equipment in Lahore and that only those issued a No Objection Certificate will be allowed to produce the material. The announcement follows the detailed account of the new system the Deputy Commissioner gave in an interview reviewed by The Lahore Times and reported in these pages on Friday.
A significant clarification has emerged since yesterday’s report. An official source in the Lahore administration told Dawn that registration at this stage is for manufacturers alone, and that kite sellers, traders and associations will be asked to register in January or February, with their date to be announced later.
That sequencing sits alongside the three-tier category structure the Deputy Commissioner described earlier this week, under which manufacturers, traders and sellers are kept as separate classes on the portal rather than processed together.
The decision to begin licensing was taken at a meeting chaired by Punjab Senior Minister Maryam Aurangzeb, at which the Deputy Commissioner briefed her on festival arrangements; she said preparations for the portal had been completed and that manufacturing would be permitted only after licences are issued.
The administration has tied the timing to a festival scheduled for March 12 to 14 next year, dates announced by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif in a social media post in which she invited young people from across the country, overseas Pakistanis and foreign visitors to the three-day event. The March window gives licensed producers a longer runway than the compressed schedule that frustrated the trade last season.
Manufacturers had been pressing for exactly that. An industry representative, Wain, told The Express Tribune last month that kite manufacturing should be allowed in Punjab for four to five months starting in September so adequate stock could be prepared before the festival.
Under the announced framework, a NOC must be obtained before production starts, and manufacturing sites will be subject to monitoring and inspection, with the stated aim of keeping prohibited material out of the market.
As reported by The Lahore Times on Friday, the Deputy Commissioner has pointed to a new inventory feature as the safeguard for licensed operators, allowing manufacturers to upload production as it happens so that the administration’s record tallies with the trader’s own. He said this would allow the government to extend proper protection to those operating legally, addressing complaints from the last cycle that licensed stock was seized and that intermediaries were charging applicants as much as Rs100 to enter names on the portal. A complaints mechanism and a control room are to run alongside registration.
Only kites of approved sizes will be permitted, with cotton string and panna allowed for flying, and the administration has signalled a zero-tolerance approach to chemical-coated string.
The strictness has a grim basis. Basant 2026, held from 6 to 8 February after roughly two decades of prohibition, operated under the Punjab Regulation of Kite Flying Ordinance 2025. The Punjab home department later informed the Lahore High Court that 17 people died during the festival, with more than 100 accidents reported.
Three questions will define whether the early start works: whether the inventory system genuinely shields licensed stock from seizure, whether the control room ends the intermediary charging, and whether confining production to Lahore yields enough material to avoid a repeat of last year’s last-minute relaxation, when manufacture was permitted in Faisalabad, Kasur, Multan and Sheikhupura to meet demand.
This report is compiled from the Deputy Commissioner’s public announcements, this newspaper’s earlier reporting, and coverage carried by Dawn, The Express Tribune and other outlets, each attributed in the text. The Lahore Times has sought written confirmation from the Deputy Commissioner’s office of the portal’s live status, category definitions and the registration date for sellers and traders, and will update this report accordingly.
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