SC panel observes, 'Value of tree is Rs 74,500 multiplied by its age', Juhi Chawla reacts

For the first time, guidelines on the valuation of trees have been set in India. The committee of experts told a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde that a heritage tree serves the civil society and the environment and its valuation can be reached on various counts including oxygen, micro-nutrients, compost, and bio-fertilizer.

It said that if all costs are added and multiplied by the remaining age of a tree, in the present case 100 years, the grand total would be Rs 74,500 per tree year. The bench also added that a heritage tree that takes decades or centuries to mature could be valued at more than Rs 1 crore.

Reacting to this, actor and environmentalist Juhi Chawla asked her fans to picture a scenario where the "value of the tree is equivalent to the fine imposed on cutting it down" — and said that if that happens, "We'll have a green India hands down."

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Juhi Chawla is known to raise her voice for numerous environmental causes, right from plastic pollution, harmful effects of mobile tower radiation and the importance of planting trees. The actor recently expressed her views on the quality of air in Mumbai, with a bit of sarcasm. She was not pleased about 'inhaling dust', and joked that perhaps the lockdown against COVID-19 was 'not that bad after all.'

Juhi Chawla asked in a tweet, ‘what has happened’ to the air in Mumbai. The Qayamat se Qayamat Tak star shared that when she tried to walk in her balcony, she felt like she was inhaling ‘dust... only dust.’

When the lockdown to COVID-19 was announced, the difference in the quality of air and other natural phenomena had been a talking point. Juhi highlighted that the lockdown wasn’t ‘so bad after all’, as she remembered the air being so ‘blissfully clear’ at that time.

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(With PTI inputs)