Why in news?

• ·         Researchers from IIT Kharagpur have devised decision support system (DCS) to help maximise LPG connections in BPL (below poverty line) households Pradhan MantriUjjwalaYojana.
• ·         It is a first of its kind for analysis of a national level energy policy, it said.

Decision Support System (DSS):

• ·         A decision support system (DSS) is a computer programme that helps in making sound rational decisions using mathematical programming and operation research techniques.
• ·         The DSS for such policies can provide us the exact values of important parameters over the prescribed policy time period, which in turn will help us to take important measures to ascertain the proper functioning (monitoring) of the policy towards the desired goal.
• ·         The DSS devised at the IIT uses mixed integer linear programming to mathematically formulate the policy using input parameters, decision variables and their relationships.
• ·         The mathematical model has found the optimum number of total (BPL) connections required in a region, number of dealerships that need to be commissioned in a region over the policy time frame.
• ·         The research has done sensitivity analysis with the mathematical model — change in a decision variable with respect to the change in parameter.

Significance of the System:

• ·         With this, they can predict not only how the number of household connections can be increased but also the critical region that contributes most in each zone of LPG distribution.
• ·         The DSS for such policies can provide the exact values of important parameters over the prescribed policy time period.
• ·         This in turn will help researchers to take important measures to ascertain the proper functioning (monitoring) of the policy towards the desired goal.
• ·         This kind of DSS can be developed for various federal and state level policies for various commodities like solar panels distributions, agricultural commodities and so on.