My Impressions of Romania

I have been to Bucharest, Romania recently. Here are my impressions of Romania:

Bucharest Diary- Oct 07, 2006

This 20 million eastern European country will be part of European Union from 1^st Jan 2006.

Bucharest is very much like India with better infrastructure and less people. You will see similar traffic jams and scant respect for traffic rules only to a lesser degree. It rained yesterday and promptly sent the city to a traffic nightmare. It took 1 hour to reach my apartment, a 10 min drive from the office I work in the north part of the city. Much of the infrastructure was built during the communist regime and very little was added to the city furniture.

Still, Romania has made good progress since the revolution in 1989, about the same time India began liberalization. It suffers from the same woes as India, apathetic government officials, inadequate infrastructure and the like. Now, foreigners can buy real estate in Romania and there is a real estate boom in the country. The prices are high compared to even US, in many cases. I could rent an apartment for similar or lower prices in Connecticut not the cheapest in US, three years ago.

Still, you can’t take away the fact that it is a beautiful city with beautiful people. Romanian is said to be derived from Latin language and the Romanians like to consider themselves Latinos. The number of beauty clinics is unbelievable. The rich like to spend time in beauty clinics and shows in the streets!

Dogs are a menace in Romania. The story goes that, Nicolae Chacescue destroyed many colonies of Bucharest to build the palace parliament, his dream and the dogs were left in the streets by their owners. The current president, who was mayor of Bucharest five years ago, had many killed, but the problem is still rampant. Recently, a Japanese expat bled to death after bitten by a street dog before help could reach him. It may be an isolated incident, but I avoid streets in the dark for fear of dogs.

It is a beautiful place for a summer holiday. Mountains or the beaches Romania has them all. The drive from Bucharest to Brasov is beautiful with people camping along the stream that goes almost parallel to the road. The Danube delta and black sea resort are truly beautiful places to visit.

Road accidents and Public Services

I read two inter related articles in today's news paper. One informed about a road accident on DND flyover where a Maruti Esteem collided with a car which was coming in the opposite direction. Now, that is not uncommon. Every day I encounter a truck or a tractor coming on the wrong side on my 10 minute drive to office in Gurgaon. Instead of going that extra mile to take a u-turn, these people turn on the wrong side. Recently, I encountered a police jeep coming on the wrong side on NH8 to Jaipur. It is a tailor made scenario for a disaster. It is easy to see why people don't make an effort to follow the rules. Because there is no disincentive in doing it. It is not possible to catch every one of them not following the rules. However, if there is a perception, that there is a good chance you will be punished, people will automatically follow the rules. What is required is random checks and IMMEDIATE punishment. Like a hefty fine. You get a ticket and you pay the fine, that is it. I have seen the parking attendants at CP, using a small machine ( like credit card swiping machine) to issue parking tickets. If police go around with that machine, issue tickets then and there, and register the offence in that machine to be downloaded into a database later, it would crate a disincentive against not following traffic rules.

That brings me to the second article. In steadfast Sentries of the old guard
V Raghunathan explained how RTOs( Road Transport Organizations) can do a much better job in being consumer friendly and in making sure that people learn driving skills and traffic rules before they are issued a driving license. Of course, many of us have experienced how ridiculously easy to obtain a driving license in India.

I will go beyond that. I think Improving the public services has to be the number 1 priority for the government. A while ago, I was in UK and I saw how Tony Blair made public services the number1 priority for the labour to win the next elections. In his own words,


"Meeting the 18 weeks maximum for waiting in the NHS with an average of 9 weeks from the door of the GP to the door of the operating theatre. Booked appointments. The end of waiting in the NHS. Historic.

Transforming secondary schools in the way we have done for primary schools. Schools with three quarters of children getting good results the norm. Historic.

Both within reach.

Do this and we will have earned the right to be custodians of our public services for the next generation." in his last speech as Labour leader.

We need those kind of metrics. Average waiting time at hospitals, % of patients happy with level of service at government hospitals, average waiting time at passport office, RTOs and so on. When parties compete to improve the public services, when they are voted on their performance to improve public services, that is when public services will improve.


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government had an average performance so far. It has not been a great performance without any major achievement. Can he make the improvement in public services as his number 1 priority for the reminder of the term? That might as well be his trump card. Nothing impacts the common man on the street as much as the public services and he will go down in the history as the Prime Minister who has transformed the public services in India.