M/s Eicher Goodearth Ltd., New Delhi intends to launch Hi-Tech metro directories for the cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. These metro directories are actually large scale city guide maps and will contain minute details like house and plot numbers, telephone numbers etc. Each of these guide maps will be christened as Eicher City Map (ECM).

M/s Eicher Goodearth Ltd. have awarded to Indian Resources Information & Management Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (IN-RIMT) the task of preparation of these maps for cities of Mumbai and Bangalore. In the case of Chennai, IN-RIMT would be taking up the processing of high resolution satellite data only. Generally these guide maps are prepared through physical ground survey and compilation of existing maps which are having serious limitations in terms of information, consistency and accuracy. Moreover the field surveys are tedious, slow and error prone.

On the other hand, in remote sensing techniques with the ability to generate information on continuous mode, it is possible to generate maps with the latest, fault free and geographically accurate information. New high resolution satellite data covering the cities have been obtained after subjecting the data to various digital processing techniques for better delineation of cultural features. In the first stage the extent of the city and sprawl were demarcated. The total built up area is divided into a number of uniform rectangular grids of specific sizes i.e. 2 km./2.5 km. From this the total number of pages covering the entire city is determined.

The large scale satellite photographs (IRS 1C PAN data) on scales ranging from 1:10,000 to 1:12,500 are separately generated from the digital data. The natural and cultural details like water bodies, lines of communications, colonies, green areas like parks are accurately interpreted therein. This information is updated by incorporating additional details like names and text which are extracted from locally available revenue and local authorities' records. The updated record is meticulously ground verified. The information content for metropolitan cities will be very huge consisting details like roads, railways, pattern of urban dwellings including the serial number of buildings and other user friendly map information like banks, commercial institutions, educational institutions, hotels, public utility services etc.

The entire digital data can be stored in ARC Info in different layers resulting in generation of an infrastructural data base. The information can be upgraded by the addition of value added items like address, type of feature, telephone number etc. for the entire city. The cost advantage of this method due to the reduced burden of field work is upto 1/3 of the normal conventional cost. The information can be updated at frequent intervals. These city maps can cater to a variety clientele like planners, engineers, administrators and industrialists.