🔗 Share this article

The lush green jungle and reddish-brown elevations of Lote, situated along India’s western shoreline, give way to a modest rise where a factory looms under the open sky.

The factory is largely newly built, but its equipment is far from new: it comes from the defunct Miteni plant in Vicenza, Italy. Miteni ceased operations in 2018 after among the most severe environmental scandals in the country’s recent history: after years of manufacturing Pfas forever chemicals, the company’s management was prosecuted for contaminating water resources in an area inhabited by 350,000 people. In June, its former executives were convicted at the Vicenza court of causing environmental pollution and additional offenses and given prison sentences, which they are expected to appeal against.

Understanding PFAS: Toxicity Levels and Exposure Routes

Nevertheless, all of the company’s equipment, its patents and methods – everything needed to manufacture Pfas – is now located at Lote Parshuram MIDC, a large industrial zone almost 4,000 miles away, wedged between villages and groves of trees. And the plant has recently begun to resume PFAS production.

An Environmental Burden

Once known for its expertise in developing processes for advanced chemicals, Miteni is now infamous for the harmful aftermath it left behind. In 2011, scientists found exceptionally elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds in the plant’s wastewater. Numerous of inhabitants had been exposed through drinking water.

The most impacted were Miteni’s own workers. Ilario Ermetti, 69, who was employed for years in its specialty chemicals division, showed one of the highest concentrations of PFAS documented in human blood. “After the facts emerged, I reviewed a list of medical conditions associated with Pfas, and found out I had them all,” states Ermetti.

Elevated concentrations of Pfas in the blood are linked to increased risk of malignancies, cardiovascular diseases, organ impairment, reproductive disorders and additional ailments. Ermetti is currently recovering from a recent medical procedure.

Public Apprehensions

Michela Piccoli, 51, a healthcare worker and campaigner with Mamme No Pfas, started organizing after learning her offspring’s blood tests showed elevated amounts of persistent pollutants. When she found out that Miteni’s patents and equipment were being transferred to India, she was shocked.

“Being parents, as women, our anxiety has increased,” she said. “Because our children are the children of all.”

Business Shift

Following Miteni’s insolvency, its assets were bought in 2019 by a pharmaceutical firm, a branch of the domestic chemical corporation Laxmi Organic Industries – the sole participant in the public auction. By the start of 2023, the complete machinery was being shipped en route to Mumbai. At the same time, Laxmi was promoting its new acquisition to shareholders. Records of investor gatherings indicate that Laxmi’s management minimized ecological worries, with its president, Harshvardhan Goenka, stating that Miteni was “doing everything legally according to European standards”.

Goenka is one of the three men on the directorate of Laxmi Organic the Italian branch, a entity founded in 2021. Another is Antonio Nardone, the last chief executive of Miteni, who was found guilty of ecological offenses and financial misreporting at the recent court case and sentenced to six years and four months in jail. According to a former mid-level manager requesting confidentiality, Nardone was taking business trips to India months before the firm’s collapse.

While Laxmi bought Miteni’s assets in June 2019, the environmental assessment report for the building of the factory in Lote reveals that in March 2018 the company was already intending to start producing fluorinated compounds matching Miteni’s offerings. Laxmi Organic Industries declined to answer inquiries.

Growth Plans

By 2021, Laxmi’s strategy explicitly spelled out the objective to “capture [the] market share of Miteni” and become a leader in the production of PFAS and specialty chemicals. Logistics data indicate that, to get approval on the quality of the chemicals, in 2024 Laxmi started sending out test batches to firms with previous commercial ties with Miteni, such as BASF, Chemours, DuPont and FMC.

Since early 2025, Laxmi’s location in Lote Parshuram has been completely active, manufacturing substances that will be utilized for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, cosmetics and additional goods.

Environmental Oversight

Investigations demonstrate that levels of forever chemicals in the ecosystem are worryingly elevated, particularly around manufacturing facilities. But even though global focus is increasing, in India the issue is not yet a policy priority.

“If we look at the regulations, [Pfas] is absent in those standards. It’s not recognised by the Indian government as of today,” said Rajneesh Gautam, an ecological scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “Independent research groups across India have conducted studies in various regions. But these studies are limited in scope, and there are still very few of them.”

Regional Consequences

Parineeta Dandekar, head of the regional environmental group, says the Lote Parshuram industrial district “has a dismal environmental track record”. 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 centralised wastewater treatment plant that has been at the forefront of complaints.

“The local villages have consistently reported that it’s not working properly,” said Dandekar. “During power outages, a common occurrence in rural Maharashtra state, the facility cannot function and factories discharge contaminated effluent straight into the streams.” Regulatory bodies have sent multiple notices to the site in the past few years.

Global Implications

In the EU, the regulatory agency is reviewing a proposal to prohibit the production, import and use of over ten thousand persistent compounds. This attention may be driving the sector to the global south, according to Claudia Marcolungo, a legal scholar at the University of Padua. “I think that this issue should be investigated, because the reality that Miteni’s operations, patents and equipment have been transferred to a country like India should lead us to reflect, minimally, on the power that these multinationals have to relocate in countries where there is clearly a lowering of standards in terms of ecological safeguards.”

Ongoing Risks

Miteni has shut down, but the firm’s harmful impact continues – at the contaminated site in Vicenza, and in Lote. The medical effects associated with Pfas production are expected to impact communities that are already struggling with an unsafe environment for generations.

“The area has experienced sufficient ecological damage already,” says Dandekar. “Should additional hazardous firms establish presence, it’s perpetually concerning.”