Ustaad Amjad Pervaiz Badshah says the kite law is unworkable for craftsmen, calls for small spools to be allowed and for action to focus on dangerous string rather than traders
LAHORE: A veteran of Lahore’s kite trade has urged the Punjab government to allow small charkhis (string spools) at Basant 2027 and to legalise the kite business across Pakistan, arguing that the current law punishes craftsmen while failing to stop the dangerous string that makes the festival deadly.
“If the government is going to allow Basant for, say, four days, then please, I implore you, allow the use of small charkhis,” Ustaad Amjad Pervaiz Badshah said in an interview with a private television channel. “It is in the state’s interest to have a clear, established law for this. By allowing these spools, the entire operation can be brought under a regulated framework.”
A rule that bans the reel
Basant returns to Lahore on March 12 to 14, 2027 under rules that permit only cotton thread and fixed kite sizes while banning chemical-coated and metal string, aerial firing, fireworks and charkhis altogether, even during the festival. Police have been enforcing the rules aggressively, seizing 4,470 kites in one drive and this week arresting a constable and his family for delivering banned spools from Kasur.
Badshah said he had seen on Facebook and TikTok that buyers in Peshawar were ordering thousands of charkhis from Lahore, evidence, he argued, that demand will simply move underground unless the trade is regulated.
‘Target the string, not the trade’
He argued that the real danger lies in the thick, reinforced and chemical-coated dor used by a small number of skilled fighters, not in ordinary kite flying. “If someone is found with the thick, reinforced kind of string, then by all means, imprison them or deal with them however you see fit,” he said. “If someone violates the SOPs, catch them, fine them or imprison them; we have no objection to that.”
Cutting off the supply of dangerous string at its source would bring everything back to normal, he said, dismissing talk of a large “mafia” behind the trade as a handful of wholesalers who buy and distribute stock.
A law craftsmen say they cannot follow
Badshah called the law “flawed” and “incomprehensible” for workers. Labourers are paid about Rs500 for a piece of work, he said, while a reel of string can cost Rs1,000 to Rs1,100, so seizures of stock before the festival wipe out workers’ investment. He argued that rules forcing makers to stockpile months of output without being allowed to sell it are unrealistic, and said a bulk lot of string costs around Rs325,000.
His concerns echo complaints from licensed manufacturers, who have faced slow licensing and rising prices for thread, paper and bamboo since registration opened in September. Under the district notification, purchase, transport and storage of approved kite material will be allowed only from February 1, with public sales from February 10.
He said he had tried to meet Lahore’s deputy commissioner but had not been given an appointment, and called for the trade to be opened up nationwide, from Peshawar and Karachi to Quetta and Abbottabad, noting that kite flying is practised in dozens of countries.
Badshah predicted Basant 2027 would be far larger than this year’s revival, with more of the public joining in and demand for kites several times higher. Supply ran short during the February 2026 festival, when at least 17 people died, mostly in rooftop falls.
The government’s position
Officials have defended the strict rules as necessary to prevent a repeat of the deaths that led to Basant’s 18-year ban. DIG Operations Faisal Kamran said this week that action against illegal sale and supply would continue “indiscriminately”. The district administration has not publicly responded to calls to permit charkhis.
With five months to go, the debate is shifting from whether Basant will happen to how tightly it can be controlled without pushing the trade into the shadows.
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