[Manish Jain]

Survey for the Town Planning
The surveys establish ultimately the present state of the town and indicate the measures for its improvements.

Objective of survey for the town planning are:
The people, their interests and occupations and how they follow them,
The land and buildings and how they serve their interests.

The data collected in surveys are properly analysed in relation to the area under consideration and they are recorded on maps, charts, schedules and models. The planning survey does not start just of its own, it has to be organized with meticulous care from beginning to end and various processes concerned with such survey are suitably collected, processed, arranged and interpreted. Thus, the essential ingredient of a purposeful town planning survey is to arrange the facts of investigation in the best possible scientific manner.

Advantage of survey for the town planning are:

1. The survey draws attention to the inter-relation between various complicated activities of a town life. 
   
2. The survey stresses the local requirements and appropriate treatment to be given socially, conveniently and artistically.
   
3. ‘Survey before Plan’ the principle advocated by Sir Patrick Geddes
   
4. It is the ‘Diagnosis before treatment’ or ‘Diagnostic approach’ without which no adequate planning scheme can be prepared for a town.
   The survey data so collected can be analysed and will be represented in the form of maps, charts, tables and models. Such a fully illustrated and clearly documented survey is helpful and advantageous.
   

Role of survey for the town planning are:

1.      To evaluate the effects of development,
2.      To present detailed reasoned reports,
3.      To provide the necessary understanding before decisions for development are made,
4.      To study the situation with respect to objective effectually.