On September 17, 2008 UN Habitat reported the project ?Pure Water? byBugulma City (Tatarstan Republic, the Russian Federation) won UNHabitat Scroll of Honor Award 2008.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. In 2000 the half a world population lived in cities and this number will continue growing. UN-HABITAT is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.

One of promotion tools is awarding cities for important initiatives aimed to improve living conditions of urban population. This award means world recognition of cities? achievements.

The Habitat Scroll of Honour award was launched by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in 1989. It is currently the most prestigious human settlements award in the world. Its aim is to acknowledge initiatives which have made outstanding contributions in various fields such as shelter provision, highlighting the plight of the homeless, leadership in post conflict reconstruction, and developing and improving the human settlements and the quality of urban life.

All Habitat Agenda partners are eligible for this award. These include governments and inter-governmental organizations or agencies including bilateral aid agencies; cities, local authorities or their associations; civil society organizations; private sector organizations; National Habitat committees or focal points; research and academic institutions; public or private foundations; multilateral agencies, the media and individuals cited for their outstanding work. In fact Scroll of Honor Award means the world recognition of the achievements of cities and human settlements.

Euro-Asia Regional Section of the World Organization ?United Cities and Local Governments? (UCLG Euro-Asia) is an authorized UN partner for Eurasia and thus is entitled to nominate cities for this prestigious award. In the past few years three Russian cities were awarded by UN-Habitat with the assistance of UCLG Euro-Asia: Kazan (2005), Yaroslavl (2006) and Stavropol (2007). 
 
In 2008 the city of Bugulma received the Scroll of Honor Award for its achievements in supplying its citizens with pure water. Bugulma is UCLG Euro-Asia state member and the Mayor Nail Magdeev is a member of UCLG World Council.

Currently Bugulma?s population is about 100 000 people. As the city is situated far from major waterways supply of water has always been a big problem. Till construction of a specialized plant in 1962 water was supplied from artesian wells scattered over the whole city territory. According to the data of the city?s sanitary service every second sample of water did not meet chemical requirements.   

Later a few intakes were built and set in operation along with ?Leninogorsk - Bugulma? water pipe. However due to dynamic development of the city and its industry the demand for pure water continued growing and exceeded the capacity of water supply system.  As the water pipe was quite long (approx. 200 m) water required additional cleaning upon delivery.   

In 1996 under the supervision of the Head of Bugulma District Administration Nail Magdeev and with the assistance of the President of Tatarstan Republic Mentimer Shaimiev the program ?Pure water? was launched. 

Within the first step of the program implementation a water intake ?Batyr? was built in December 1999. This raised daily water supply by 4-5 thousand square meters. The second step implied building of a water conduit in 2000.

?Pure water? project was financed by the budget of Tatarstan Republic, local budget, Ministry of Ecology of Tatarstan Republic, public corporations ?Tatenergo? and ?Tatneft?. 

The implementation of the program ?Pure water? resulted in improvement of the quality of urban life and created a firm basis for sustainable development of the city and the whole district. Bugulma residents were provided with a high quality drinking water supplied without interruptions.
In 2007 the city stopped buying water and fully switched to using its own underground water resources that resulted in water cost lowered by 15%. 

The award, a plaque engraved with the name of the winner and their achievement will be presented to the winners by the Executive Director of UN HABITAT Anna Tibaijuka at the presence of the Secretary General of UCLG Euro-Asia Rassikh Sagitov during the global observances of World Habitat Day on October 6, 2006.

17.09.2008

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