Abstract:
Towns and cities in India are facing complex problems regarding the provision and maintenance of infrastructure and services in the face of the rapid growth of population, caused both by natural increase and migration.
In order to meet such challenges a planner needs to have fairly accurate and up-to-date information, specially about physical structures and related land parameters. A study of their trends generally helps in the understanding of the emerging growth pattern and in formulating policies in the perspective plans. In the preparation of a environmentally compatible urban development plan, it is a prerequisite to understand linkages and interactions that exist between different components of the urban environment. Secondly, the data collected on different aspects of the urban environment has to be translated into useful information for the purpose of urban development. Thirdly, there is also a need to aggregate this information according to administrative/natural and hierarchical units. Basic caveat for this is the availability of systematic, detailed, reliable, timely and accurate information on various facets of urban environment. Experiences gained so far show certain shortcomings in regard to acquisition of statistics, processing, generation of graphic outputs and their storing in the existing conventional system. Such a lacuna impedes efficient and meaningful planning, implementation of programmes and their monitoring. Moreover, by the time the plan is made using conventional surveys, the data becomes old and the plan may not be suitable for implementatio
