🔗 Share this article

The lush green jungle and rust-red elevations of Lote, located on India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms against the sky.

This industrial unit is largely newly built, but its machinery is not: it comes from the defunct Miteni factory in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni closed down in 2018 following one of the worst ecological controversies in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing persistent PFAS compounds, the company’s management was prosecuted for polluting water sources in an area inhabited by 350,000 residents. In June, its former executives were convicted at the Vicenza court of environmental damage and additional offenses and given prison sentences, with appeals anticipated.

What are PFAS, how toxic are they and how do you become exposed?

And yet, all of the company’s equipment, its intellectual property and processes – all required components to manufacture forever chemicals – is now here in Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone thousands of miles distant, sandwiched among local communities and wooded areas. And the plant has just started to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its specialism in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it bequeathed. In 2011, researchers found exceptionally elevated concentrations of Pfas in the facility’s effluent. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through potable water.

The worst-affected were Miteni’s employees. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who worked for decades in its fluorinated chemical department, displayed one of the highest concentrations of Pfas documented in human blood. “When the story came to light, I reviewed a list of medical conditions related to Pfas, and found out I had them all,” says Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of PFAS in the blood are linked to higher chances of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent surgical operation.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a nurse and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after discovering her children’s blood indicated elevated amounts of forever chemicals. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being sent to India, she was shocked.

“As mothers, as women, our concern has grown,” she said. “Since our kids are the children of all.”

Business Shift

After Miteni went bankrupt, its holdings were acquired in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a subsidiary of the Indian chemical company Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped heading to Mumbai. Meanwhile, Laxmi was boasting of its new acquisition to investors. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s executives minimized environmental concerns, with its chairman, Harshvardhan Goenka, declaring that Miteni was “operating lawfully according to European standards”.

Goenka is a member on the board of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a company established in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the final CEO of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and false accounting at the June trial and sentenced to six years and four months in prison. According to a ex-supervisor requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India prior to the firm’s collapse.

Although Laxmi purchased Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the ecological review for the building of the plant in Lote shows that in March 2018 the firm was already planning to start producing fluorochemicals compatible with Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer requests for comment.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s plan explicitly spelled out the goal to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and emerge as a top player in the production of Pfas and fluorochemicals. Shipping records show that, to get approval on the standard of the compounds, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to companies with past business relationships with Miteni, including BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

From the beginning of 2025, Laxmi’s site in Lote Parshuram has been fully operational, producing chemicals that will be used in agrochemicals, medicines, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Regulatory Context

Investigations have shown that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around production sites. But even though international attention is growing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“Examining the rules, [Pfas] is not present in those standards. It’s not recognised by the national authorities as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the academic institution. “Autonomous study teams across India have performed research in different states. But this work are restricted in range, and there are still very few of them.”

Local Impact

Parineeta Dandekar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a poor ecological history”. After it was established in 1986, “the livelihood of fisher folk communities in this region completely collapsed,” she said.

The chemical district is dependent on a shared effluent treatment facility that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“Nearby communities have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “When there is no electricity, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the plant cannot function and factories release contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent several warning letters to the plant in the past few years.

International Ramifications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to ban the production, importation and utilization of over ten thousand forever chemicals. This attention may be driving the industry to the developing nations, per Claudia Marcolungo, a professor of environmental law at the academic institution. “I believe that this issue should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s production, intellectual assets and machinery have been relocated to a country like India should prompt consideration, at the very least, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in nations where there is clearly a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection.”

Persistent Threats

Miteni has closed down, but the company’s toxic legacy continues – at the polluted location in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with Pfas production are likely to affect populations that are facing an unsafe environment for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient environmental destruction already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s always a risk.”