Lacklustre Uttarayan for kite sellers due to demand slump

This year, Aftab has made about 40 lakh kites. “We work for 200 days a year to make kites for Uttarayan. About 20,000 kites are made in a day. Most of them get sold to other retailers. A pack of 1,000 paper kites and 2,000 plastic kites are sold for Rs 4 each. Paper kites are more in demand in Ahmedabad,” he said. This year, Aftab said, the sales are mostly driven by retailers.

The kites, especially the plastic ones, are delivered to Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan where they are flown on Rakshabandhan, Teej and Independence Day. The paper for the kites is bought from Agra, Delhi and Hyderabad, while the cotton thread for the cord or manjha is acquired from Bareli and made in Ahmedabad.

Another wholesaler, Yusuf Rangrez, 41, reported a 50 per cent decline in kites production this season compared to pre-Covid levels. “This year, we have about 5 lakh kites to be sold. When the Covid-19 restrictions were in place, we managed to sell 2-3 lakhs of kites,” said Rangrez. “There was a lot of demand from customers outside Ahmedabad who purchased in bulk. They buy kites as big as 5 feet in size that are sold for Rs 300 each,” he added, saying the wholesale marketers do not keep the Chinese tukkal (lanterns) as they have been instructed by the police about the list of banned items this year.

“People come looking for synthetic or Chinese manjha. We do not keep it here. But anyone who wants one manages to get from elsewhere in the city. They should not be sold. They are extremely harmful. Moreover, the cotton ‘phirkis’ cords are good enough to fly in the slightest breeze,” said Akash Patni, a shopkeeper in the Shahpur area. “We have got around 3 lakh kites this time expecting more sales as the festival is back after a gap of two years. (However) I am able to make only Rs 400 to 500 a day for the past five days,” he added.

The retail sellers are also seeing less crowd ahead of the festive season. Anil Aggarwal, who owns Anand Patang Bazar, said, “We have got around 6-7 lakh kites to be sold in this festive season. This time, we had more expectations as there was quite a demand even during the pandemic. However, the demand is less compared to two years ago”.

Meanwhile, social worker and home-maker Asmita Shukla, 68, said she has purchased more than 1,000 kites for her grandkids as well as others. Another buyer in the Shahpur area, Alok Shah, said, “This time it is going to be different as we also have a whole weekend to fly kites. We have seen a bit of still wind for the past few days. But we hope the conditions will be better during the weekend.”