Bangalore: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is working on a national "urban information system" (UIS) to map every town and city in the country during the 10th five year plan.

The Union Urban Development Ministry has sanctioned Rs 115 crore for the UIS plan to map all the towns and cities in the country using ISRO's remote sensing satellites during the period 2002-07, ISRO Director, Earth Observation Systems Dr V Jayaraman told reporters in Bangalore on June 18.

He said UIS would include aerial and satellite mapping to draw maps of various sizes of the urban infrastructure in the country.

Jayaramanan said ISRO had already mapped urban infrastructure in 12 major cities in the country.

He said ISRO's satellite images were used to align the ring road in Bangalore and also the IT corridor in the city.

At present, satellite images on the flood situation in Assam is being trasmitted to the resource centre in Shillong and the Indian Air Force every four hours, Jayaraman said, adding the images were being used for disaster relief and moving flood-hit population to safe areas.

He said India was one of the few countries in the world to have end-to-end capability in utilising space resources for the benefit of the people.

PTI