On Tuesday, ET carried a small update on how the institutional response to coal-gate was shaping up. That article ended by concluding it will take more than these responses to clean up the suppurating mess in the indian coal sector.

A story by my brilliant friend/colleague Avinash Celestine and me in today’s ET Magazine elaborates on that theme. We argue that while a lot of government (and media) attention is focusing on the lack of auctions, politicians slipping coal blocks to friends, family and — possibly — pets, and companies dragging their feet on the blocks given to them, a mass of other questions are not getting  the scrutiny they deserve. These include the one-sided contracts PSUs are signing with private cos for extracting coal (See this and this), the poorly understood and explained crisis in coal india, the role of the bureaucrats in perpetuating the status quo, the statistical jugglery while quantifying india’s coal reserves, political rent-seeking…

Take a look? Click here.