LAHORE: The Lahore’s district administration has withdrawn its earlier decision to confine kite and string manufacturing to five designated zones, opening the entire city to licensed producers ahead of Basant 2027.
Under the revised policy, no zonal boundary will apply within district limits. Registered manufacturers may set up production anywhere in Lahore, provided they first obtain a manufacturing licence from the administration.
The licence, not the location, is now the deciding factor. Applicants must submit complete details in their application, including the full address of the premises where kites or string will be produced and a photograph of the site.
Once approval is granted, manufacturing may take place only at that approved address. Producing material anywhere else — even by a licence holder — falls outside the permission. Only registered manufacturers will be allowed to make kites and string in Lahore.
The five locations previously proposed for the trade stand withdrawn.
The earlier five-zone model was intended to cluster production in a handful of monitorable pockets. In practice, kite and string making in Lahore has long been a home-and-workshop industry spread through the Walled City, Misri Shah, Shad Bagh and Baghbanpura — trades that could not realistically relocate. Confining licences to five zones risked pushing established artisans into the unregistered market, the precise outcome the regulatory system was built to prevent.
Tying permission to a photographed, declared address achieves the same traceability without forcing relocation. Inspection teams get a fixed point to visit; the manufacturer keeps his workshop.
The decision lands as Lahore’s Basant Portal opens to manufacturers, the first phase of the licensing cycle for a festival scheduled for March 12 to 14, 2027. Deputy Commissioner Lahore Captain (retd) Muhammad Ali Ijaz has said a permit is mandatory for producing kite-flying equipment in the city, and that only holders of a No Objection Certificate may manufacture. Only approved kite sizes, cotton string and panna are permitted, with a stated zero-tolerance approach to chemical-coated string and metallic wire.
Opening manufacturing roughly six months before the festival — against about one month for Basant 2026 — is intended to build sufficient stock early and hold retail prices down.
Basant returned to Lahore in February 2026 after nearly two decades under the Punjab Regulation of Kite Flying Ordinance 2025, which replaced a blanket prohibition with supervised production, registration and controlled flying windows. The prohibition era followed the Punjab Prohibition of Kite Flying (Amendment) Act, 2024, which set five to seven years’ imprisonment and fines up to Rs5 million for unauthorised kite makers and transporters.
Urdu-language news outlets, including Daily Ausaf, have reported a Rs1,000 fee for the manufacturing licence. The Lahore Times is seeking confirmation of the fee and of the registration window for sellers and traders, and will update this report.
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