Scouting for black diamonds

Overview

Finally loosening its decades-long chokehold on domestic coal, India is slowly deregulating the sector to try to ward off a supply crunch resulting from years of underinvestment. The government is awarding a larger number of coal blocks to private companies for captive mining and is modifying its policies to establish a more competitive coal market.

But reforms are far from keeping pace with the rising requirements for coal to fuel India’s economic growth surge. Political...